Another Halloween Wobble Card

Here's another Halloween wobble card. This one is a 5x7 that follows the same basic design idea as the last one, the image is just smaller and the card is bigger. This one was a little more challenging to design though because the embossing folder is designed for an A2 size card, so the embossed image is offset to the left and the wobbling skeleton makes up the difference on the right.

As always, click on the images for directions with the stamps used and paper sizes.

Action Wobble Frankenstein Card

While Frankenstorm rages outside, I thought it would be the perfect time to get some Halloween cards posted, starting with this Frankenstein card I made. Frankstein is mounted using an action wobble, which is basically a plastic spring that pops him up from the card and allows him to wobble back and forth. The background of this card is dry embossed and then inked.

As always, click on the greeting card image for full directions from the web site.

Birthday Version of the Scarecrow Card

It usually takes a while to get that first version of a greeting card done because you have figure out all the supplies and colors you are going to use, so its always nice when the design lends itself to multiple purposes.

One of the cool things about this stamp set is that the words can be used as a set or you can use the outside words as a lead in to an old age birthday card and take the inside words and use them on the outside for a get well card like the one I posted yesterday. Click on the image for full directions to the card if you want to know more about how make this card.

Fall Get Well Card

Here's a fall card that you easily use as a get well card or to send someone going through any kind of difficulty at this time of year.

Click on the image for full directions if you want to know more.

Little Girl Cards

It's been a while since I've put any of the new cards I made up on the web, but here are a few I have gotten the directions and pictures for up on the website.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the exact stamps used, paper sizes and marker colors.

This one is a combination of a Penny Black stamp colored with Copic markers, a Heartfelt Creations die and some nice DCWV paper. The image has been cropped down but the stamp was large that this had to be a 5x7 card to fit all the elements.

Same 5x7 card as above, but redone in purple.

A 4x6 card using a Sweet 'n Sassy stamps colored with Copic markers. All of the oval mats are done using Spellbinder dies.

The beauty of nature

Here's a fairly straight forward 7x5 card I did with some of the new stamps I got at a rubber stamp convention this summer. The edge underneath the mountains is also a new Spellbinders Edgibilities die. The mountains have been colored with 4 shades of  nuetral gray Copic markers with a little bit of warm gray mixed in a few places. Rather than try and make a scene with the mountains, I opted to cut them out and mount them on dark blue cardstock since the words speak about the beauty of nature and giant mountain peaks are awe inspiring examples of nature that dwarf anything man has built.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

That's One Sick Bear

Here's an image I stamped out a long time ago and just recently got around to coloring. Maybe subconsciously I was just waiting for the newest die set I got so I would have something large enough to fit the image without having to do a simple square. This is a 5 x7 card base so the image is quite large. The coloring is all Copic markers. I thought about putting a get well saying on the card somewhere but the image and worried look in the dogs face seemed to say it all already. The colors are on the instructions you can get by clicking on the image.

Flipping out!

I brought the stamps for this card in early spring. Some people call this a flip card but most seem to call it a waterfall card. The stamp sets for these usually have a series of 4-5 images that show the progression of something happening and then reader pulls the tab to flip them like an old paper stack of hand drawn  animations or pictures were flipped to create a moving picture before we had these cool LCD displays with millions of dots that can be changed hundreds of times a second to any color you want with a little electricity.

I am working through them and planning to use each of the stamp sets to make a card. Here's the first one themed around Halloween. Click on the card if you want to see the directions.

New HoneyPOP Get Well Card

It's been a while since my last post. I have been uploading stuff but it was all changes to make the website more compatible with the latest html specifications and trying to improve some of the web site infrastructure. One side effect you may notice if you have memorized the card positions is that a bunch of cards that got edited will shuffle around position when I put up the next set of indices later today because they are actually computer generated by the file modification time.

I do have a few new cards to put out too, starting with this new Inky Antics HoneyPOP get well card. This one is kind of interesting. I actually used marker and colored pencil on the inside because there were areas I didn't want to bleed though and show on the other side. I didn't do a lot a shading and blending on this one. I did some (applying a second layer after the marker dried and using the blender to lighten the other side) but I was more concerned with color matching the image to the cardstock so I only used the one marker color for each area instead of full blending set.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Happy Birthday Definition Cards

Here are two more new cards. These were inspired by two new stamps I got and some one pound packs of cut up paper that had bunches of a few different colors cut down to 4x6 or smaller. Everything except the white card stock and the card base came out of these bargain packs.

I started out making a male design and decided to make a female version with pinks and yellows from a second pack. Like the last design, it's practically the same except for the color choices and glitter on the pink one but the choice of colors made the male card a female one. The cupcakes weren't part of the original design but that area looked too empty so I colored coordinating cupcakes and added them to the design.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Carrots For You Easter Card

I wasn't planning on posting any more Easter cards this year, but then I saw the new HoneyPOP collection Inky Antics had in person at a stamping convention and had to get them, so now I have 2 more cards to post before Easter. This card is actually made with the stamps that they designed for the inside of the card, but I flipped things around and used them on the outside to make a card that doesn't actually use any of the new HoneyPOP paper. Here's the card:


I'm still working on the post and web page for the other card that does use the new HoneyPOP paper. Stay tuned, I hope to post it tomorrow night.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Copic Rejoice Easter Cross Card

Here's an Easter card I made a weekend or two ago. The cross image is colored with Copic markers while the rest of it is cardstock and stamping.

This one took a long time to design. I had originally stamped the cross in gold embossing. Then I decided to try black ink thinking it would stand out better and could just be a bottom layer but I really didn't like the way a gold embossed cross stacked on top of it. I stamped one in purple and that didn't look right either. After much playing, I was about to give up and just use an embossed gold image, since it looked the best out of what I had tried, but then I remembered Copic has a nice gold colored marker (Y28) and went back to the black stamped image and colored one with markers, which finally gave me a cross that could stand on its own against the background. I was hoping to stamp the sentiment on the card directly, but the Bazzill paper had a texture to it and the little stamp proved it required a great a deal of precision to produce a good image so I had to go with a mounted sentiment.


As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps, marker colors and paper sizes.

Masterpiece Watering Can

Here's a masterpiece I created. This is a masterpiece card because it's the kind of card you would see at a vendor booth at a stamping convention. It's beautiful and eye catching. It requires lots of expensive stuff to make - 4 different Spellbinder die sets, 3 different stamp sets and Copic markers. It takes a long time to create one, an hour or more, even if you are talented and even after you have designed it and know how to make one. If you were going to sell it, you would have to sell it for $15 or more just to get minimum wage for your time. It's not a card, it's a masterpiece.


As always with my posts, just click the card to get the directions if you want to know more about the stamps, die sets or just want to read more.

Who Wants A Cruise For Their Birthday?

Here's a cool birthday card that proposes just that thought. I made versions of it using both colored pencils blended with mineral spirits on a blending stump and Copic markers. Since most cruises seem to be to warmer destinations, at least where I live, I tried to make a bright warm summer card, inspite of the snow that was on the ground at the time. The Copic marker version is brighter naturally while the colored pencil one looks good but the colors are a little fainter. Here are the two different versions:



Copic Marker Version



Blended Colored Pencil Version
Of course the recipient will not be getting a cruise. Inside it reads "Will you pick up my mail while I'm gone?" The perfect funny card for a cruise lover to give to someone or for you to tease a cruise lover.

As always click on a card image to see the full directions.

Loon Birthday Wishes

Here is another birthday greeting card designed using Purple Daisy Designs' stamps. This one is designed around masculine colors. For this one I decided to play with airbrushing the water since it was a larger area to cover and there wasn't much else to do since a loon is black and white.

I thought it might go faster and require a little less ink. It should have except I though I had refilled the B91 marker I was using a few days ago and was starting with a full marker, but not much color was going on the paper for some reason. It turns out B93 had been refilled, not B91. It should have been obvious from the result on the paper. No ink in the marker means no ink to go on the page. I had myself convinced this marker had been refilled though.

I didn't figure out the problem until I decided to just color it with the super brush and the marker tip started turning white, which is a bad thing. It was then that I went over to my container of refills and pulled out the B91 refill and found myself staring at a new, sealed, full B91 refill, sitting next to B93 refill that was missing about 2 oz of ink. Since I had the B91 refill I was able to immediately refill it, and the super brush tip seems to still be working fine, although it does have slight discoloration now where it went white. If I hadn't of had the B91 on hand I would have needed to keep it wet with either colorless blender or a little B93 until I could get B91 ordered and shipped to me.

Here's the card. As always, click on the image for full directions.

Copic Seagull Card

Here's another greeting card based on one of the Purple Daisy Design stamps I brought last year to color with that has finally been used. If you recall from previous posts, I'm trying to start the year off by being less of a stamp collector and more of a stamper. I've been buying their stuff at conventions for the last few years but have done very little with some of it because I have too much stuff and not enough free time. I have not gone crazy and decided to stop buying new stuff though if there is cool new stuff out there that I don't have, so it's admittedly a lost battle. (Note to the local crafts stores like Michael's and AC Moore - you need to get new stuff - I have all of your current stuff that I want!) I actually haven't had this stamp that long if you disregard the Thanksgiving and Christmas cardmaking seasons so I guess I did pretty well on this one.

I thought about stamping something on the background to step this up a bit but I really didn't want any other elements on the card to distract from the main image and the saying. One thing this card does really show off is the visual color difference between the warm, cool and neutral grays available in the Copic marker line. The bird was colored with the neutral grays, trying to match the normal feather colors of a real bird. The posts were colored with the warm grays and the bolt was colored with a cool gray, which is perfect when you want something metallic. As always, click on the image to be taken to the website for full directions including the marker colors and paper sizes if you want more information on how to make the card or even if you just want to see the bigger image you can get to from the directions.

Purple Daisy Bouquet

Here's my latest handmade greeting card and another one using the rubber stamps from Purple Daisy Designs that I've been catching up on this month. Fair warning though, this one takes forever to make. You'll have to stamp out 11 flowers and color and shade all the flowers using Copic marker, or your favorite coloring technique. You might want to have an ink refill handy for your light purple marker too if you decide to make a lot of these. One of the nice things about this stamp is that it's designed to fit into a punch. To punch them out you just turn the punch over so you can see the cutting parts and then insert your paper into the punch so you can see the flower through the hole. Line up the flower image with the die inside and squeeze the punch. It's much faster than having to fuss cut out each flower. The really time consuming thing is arranging the bouquet on the paper and putting pieces of the right height of dimensional foam under each leaf. The flowers are at three different heights on the card but taking the time to lay them out right at the three different dimensions makes the card look fabulous. Another really cool thing about this card is the design lends itself to being whatever kind of card you want - all you have to do is add the appropriate words inside.





Click on the card image if you want the full direction sheet from my website on how to make this card.

Will Work For Freezer Space

Here's a much more complicated and time consuming Christmas card to make. This one combines two different types of glitter and coloring with Copic markers.

I had originally wanted to try to create a whole scene with the snowman but the practical reality was this is a fairly large stamp that barely fit on an A2 sized card and I prefer using A2 for anything like a Christmas card because it's easier on supplies, the envelopes aren't hard to buy and it usually comes in a little under the 1 oz a single stamp covers in the US.

This lead me to simply cutting the image out since there was no way to mat it. I like the effect stamping in white creates so stamping snowflakes to go with the snowman was the obvious choice, especially since the white ink in the background helped the white snowman in the foreground to go with the paper better. You have to be careful with white pigment ink though, or at least the one I'm using, because it takes a while to dry and the stamp pad is very soft so it tends to get all up in the stamp if you aren't careful.

None of the individual steps of this card are really complicated and they lend themselves to doing them in batches if you wanted to make a lot of them. You could easily change the coloring out for another technique, or simple non shaded marker colors if that's all you can do.

Once I had the pattern down it still took about 20 minutes per card to make these, not including the drying time for the glues and sealers and inks, which is something to think about if you need 100 of them.

If you want to see the full directions, just click on the image or here.

Copic Marker Are Cheap If You Use Them Regularly

As I keep coloring certain types of images, and going back to certain colors again and again, I am starting to appreciate the value of my Copic markers. Unlike most markers that you toss when they get too dry to color consistently, you keep your Copic markers and just refill them. You might have to shop online to get the refills.

As you start noticing you are using a color a lot, you should start to think about getting a refill for it and planning ahead. Copics are popular and are imported from Japan so it can takes weeks to get a refill if it's not in stock. I have several on backorder myself that I will have to wait 4-8 weeks to get.

For some of my colors, I have used up about 5cc of the refill bottle already. With another system, I would be on my third or fourth marker in that color by now. A Sketch marker holds a total of 3 ml of ink, so a 25 ml bottle is good for 8-10 refills. A Caio marker holds 2 ml of ink, so a refill bottle is good for about 13 refills if you have the Caio line. The lighter blending colors are the ones I am tending to use up faster.

I prefer the Sketch markers, so one refill and one marker are equivalent to 9 to 11 markers for me. Considering I just got a bunch of refills on sale at $4.80 a piece and brought the markers on sale as well, that means each of the 11 "refilled markers" only cost me about a $1.00. So if you use them regularly, they aren't expensive at all.

Something to think about if you need to color on your Christmas cards.

Thanksgiving Cornucopia Card

Here's my latest creation for Thanksgiving - a Cornucopia stamped out and then colored with Copic markers and matted in fall colors for Thanksgiving. I tried another coloring technique initially but for something this you really need the colors to match up exactly to real life because everyone knows what fruits and vegatables look like. Copic markers were the easiest way to get a realistic color.

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