Hot Cocoa Marci

I think this is a good example of clean and simple style. After I finished creating my scene, I didn't really feel that buttons, bows and lattices would improve the sampling. I suppose I could have doodled a wallpaper design, but my purpose here was to present a colored Hot Cocoa Marci. I just might come back later on and add the doodles.

My scene includes La-La Land Crafts Hot Cocoa Marci (Item # 5182) in a Cotton Candy (The Paper Cut) room with her own mug of hot chocolate and a peek of embossed snowflakes (Darice 5”x7” snowflake embossing folder) through a partially open window (Spellbinders Window Two # S2-016). No wonder the poor little thing is cold!

I stamped Marci and the sentiment with Memento Rich Cocoa Dye Ink. I used the following Copic Markers to create my scene: BG11, BG13, BG15, BG09, BG18, BV00, BV11, BV13, BV17, E00O, EOO, E01, E04, E21, E34, E41, E43, E47, E49, R81, R85, R89, W2, W5, and 0 (Colorless Blender).

Pure Innocence: Sprinkler Girl

 

I had a lot of fun coloring my My Favorite Things Pure Innocence girls. I colored four sets of them and then set out on a journey to create some memorable cards. I got the idea for this one from Sharon Harist's "Hula Girl" in the new Copic Coloring Guide Level 4 book. I used SparkleNSprinkle's Stamp Set 29 "Blossoms" for my background piece. I also used it on my sentiment circle. I kind of took a chance here because I stamped the sentiment first and then stamped the background.  I used Memento's London Fog and randomly stamped second generational images using my Blossoms stamp set. I am especially excited about my layering pages. I was confident that they were straight and perfectly sized because I used my new Spellbinders A2 Matting Basics A & B.  I think I used size 3 from each grouping. I used two Paper Shapers punches to make my sentiment circle -- 1 1/4" and 1 1/2" scallop. I created my card base from my The Paper Cut collection -- Raspberry and my layering with Black Licorice. Of course, I used the Copic Blend-It cardstock for stamping and coloring my images. I stamped my Sprinkler girl with Memento Tuxedo Black. My ribbon is American Crafts Premium Black Gingham. I used the following Copic Markers: B0000, B00, B01, B02, E00, E11, E31, E35, G000, G21, G24, 518, R20, RV10, RV52, RV55, RV56.

 

 

 

Art Impression Gossip Club

I have a new kit in our scrappigators shopping cart that I've been planning to develop for more than a year. The first time I colored these three ladies, I used three different face colors. I finally got smart and decided to keep it simple. The kit includes the stamp and enough product to make three cards. I precut the card  and Copic paper. All in all, it was a fun card to do. I used the following Copic Markers: B24 – Sky, B37 – Antwerp Blue; BG000 – Pale Aqua; C5 – Cool Gray #5; E000 – Pale Fruit Pink; E00 -- Skin White; E19 – Redwood; E30 - Bisque; E41 – Pearl White; E97 – Deep Orange; G29 -- Pine Tree Green; R20—Blush; R29 – Lipstick Red; V06 Lavender; V12 Pale Lilac; W00 – Warm Gray #00; W03 – Warm Gray #03; W05 – Warm Gray #05; YG03 – Yellow Green; YG06 – Yellowish Green; YG 67 -- Moss; YR18 – Sanguine; YR21 – Cream; YR24 – Pale Sepia; YR31 – Light Reddish Yellow; YR82 – Mellow Peach

My first Pengie Christmas Card

This is a sweet Christmas image from SparkleNSprinkle (Stamp set 438). As you can tell by the bundle of markers beside it, this little fellow is a color-rich project. He is one of three I'll be using in a card class I'm teaching at our Scrappigators studio in September. I used the following Copic markers:
0 - Colorless Blender; BG0000 Snow Green; E50 Egg Shell; G21 Lime Green; G24 Willow; G29 Pine Tree Green; RV25 Dog Rose Flower; RV 29 Crimson; T2 Toner Gray #2; T10 Toner Gray #10; W00 Warm Gray 00; YR 21 Cream; and YR 24 Pale Sepia. I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black onto Copic Express-It cardstock and cut it out with the largest die in the Spellbinders Labels Eighteen (S4-310) set. Of course, the neatest part of that was cutting it out on my Vagabond!!!! Yeah. As an added touch, I used Colorbox silver pigment ink, liquid applique on the Santa hat sentiment and heat embossed an inside message in silver as well. I promised one of my sample cards to my hairdresser. It seems that her son, an expectant father whose baby girl is due in October, loves pengiuns. He's lamenting the fact that he can't find an infant/newborn penguin costume for halloween or maybe a penguin snowsuit for the upcoming winter. Perhaps the card will help take away the sting of disappointment in his penguin-deprived environment. If all goes well, I'll have some more pengins to post next week. Have a wonderful day.
 

Lolly Garden Card

I had a wonderful time at Intermediate Copic Training in Lyndhurst, NJ this past weekend and have been practicing with some of my new images. Alas, I need to finish some new samples so I decided to work on my August Flower of the Month, I planned to post it today. Then I stumbled upon my SparkleNSprinkle Lolly Garden (Set397) stamp set and decided to go town! Sadly, I had to nix it after the project was finished because it requires 13 markers! But, I'm going to do four more myself because it's such a cute card. I used the following Copic colors:
BG11 Moon White
BG13 Mint Green
FYG1 Fluorescent Yellow
C2 Cool Gray 2
C5 Cool Gray 5
E000 Pale Fruit Pink
E01 Pink Flamingo
R22 Light Prawn
R24 Prawn
BG0000 Snow Green
BG000 Pale Aqua
0 Colorless Blender
100 Black

I made my card base from a Recollections paper pack I had in my stash. For the flowers on the front, I stamped three each of four colors on paper scraps and used a 3/4" punch (I think) to cut out the flowers portion.  I stamped the flowers around the bottom of the card and covered the flower portion with my punched colors. I used EK Success Repositional adhesive on the overlaping edge of the larger flower to keep the front closed. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next ones look like.

We've been busier than we can be between vending at Crop Classix Cape May two weekends ago, Becky & Clare's Day Crop last weekend, and preparing for the opening of our "country store" yesterday. Getting ready involved moving an overly-filled classroom upstairs and resetting everything for "retail." We anticpated having more stock, but were pleasantly surprised by our sales at two prior events.

These photos represent two of the four walls in our former living room minus carpet. We have lots of changes we want to make in the future depending upon the reception we get in the months ahead. We are only opened one weekend a month -- the first Thursday (noon to 6PM), Friday (10AM-6PM), and Saturday (10AM - 4PM). We hope this small effort will lead to bigger and better things for our Delaware customers. We are focused on selling product that you don't normally find in the big box craft stores.

Three people stopped by on our first day, which is great since we're relying on word of mouth and social networking. Two of the three drove up from the beach to see what we had to offer. Of course, one had a $50 gift certificate to Dover Downs and a gift card for Applebys, so we were the perfect excuse for her to make the drive to Dover. The other heard about Bylers (about 4 or 5 miles from our home) and made us the reason to drive up on Thursday. The third was Tina who came to rescue Melissa's 4-year-old. She wanted him to help her bake cookies. When I first told her about our new venture, she asked if we had enough stock. After a quick walkaround, she said, "yes, you do have enough stock."

We're quite proud of our inventory. We're not carrying a lot of paper, but we do have a good array of cardstock along with Melissa Frances' "First Avenue" collection and several Graphic 45 paper pads. Of course, we also have Mosaic Moments papers since this is one of our featured projects at retreats and day crops.

We're also expanding our Copic services. We have pens (a growing inventory), refills, and nibs. We're also offering a refill and pen-cleaning services.

We also have an active dollar bins (the little green bins) which Melissa keeps full one way or another. Here, our friend Elaine is checking out the offerings.

We're particularly proud of our "checkout" counter which we created with a table that has telescoping legs. It's a perfect fit. What we hope to see more of are smiling customers at the counter like Pat, one of our downstate friends.

Some of our other products include but are not limited to: Scraponizers, Paper Cut, quilling products, Herma Dotto Repositionable Adhesive, Zutter, our own Accessories, ETC product line and more.

All it all, it was a very good day. We hope to have many more which will support our sense that 2012 is going to be a very good year. We're tickled to say that we're off to a great start!