I Love to Color

Happy Fall Greetings Everyone!

I am really excited to share that I will be heading to Copic Certification training this weekend.  STC continues to embrace unique fundraising options and this certification will not only allow me to add new technique workshops for survivors, but will enable me to offer workshops to the public through craft stores for fundraising options. To prepare, I focused this week on coloring media in general and wanted to share the results.  Going top left to right here are the combinations...

Top left - Right -

1. Regular color pencils blended with baby oil 2. Copic Alcohol Markers 3. Memento Dye Ink used with paint brush 4. Ranger Distress Dye Inks used with paint brush

Bottom left  - Right -

1. Water color paint  2. Water color pencils 3. Water soluble graphite pencils 4 Inktense pencils

So, what do you think? Please leave a comment about your favorite look! 

After practicing, I put together this set of cards using 1. the Water Color Pencil option and 2. the Inktense Pencil option (2 and 4 on the bottom).  This time, I white embossed the image (instead of just black ink) so the color would pop. 

These cards are now proudly displayed at the Berea Arts Council Gallery for fundraising purchase. Stop by, they are only $3.00 each.

As we say during our workshops, coloring is so therapeutic! Next time I post, I will be officially Copic Certified..yeah! Then I can add two certifications to our website and blog area... Spotted Canary Scrapbook Design and Copics.  Great fundraising and workshop ideas planned for the rest of 2012 and 2013.  Thanks for your continued support! 

Jeannette

Fall Flowers

Fall Greetings Everyone!

I am already freezing and pulling out blankets..yikes! However, this is a beautiful crisp and clear time of year and I look forward to all the festivities as we head into Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Halloween! There are a few fun things to share today and a HUGE shout out to one of our donors!  I am starting out with a new perspective on my effort at creativity! In working diligently to create cards and stamped jewelry for upcoming STC events, the appearance of lots of scrap pieces caught my eye.  Throwing them out was not an option (all you crafters out there know exactly what I mean). So, since we were already planning to visit our daughter, Carly, at college for her honor award and bringing flowers, I decided to make them myself! Some are stamped and colored items I did not use on cards, others are scraps punched but to thick for mailing and the butterfly was a matter of cutting, layering, making wire antennae from stem scraps, and adding jewel stones.  Lots of fun and she seemed to love them but likely I will stick with cards :)!

 Speaking of cards, I made this for my Grandson who turned 4 this month and started pre-school. Go little man! I love this stamp from Impression Obsessions and one of my favorite stamp designers, Gary Robertson. The stamp is a piece of art in itself and the fine detail makes such a beautiful focal point. The challenge for most beginning stampers, however, is coloring so many small spots.  Actually, you really do not need to color them by just changing the base ink color and working in monotone layering. But, I wanted to make the wagon pop so I stamped the image once for the focal point and once to cut out the wagon and give it dimension by adding it overtop with pop dots. The items in the wagon were from another stamp set by and I colored and cut them out gluing them inside. A fun fall picture for a great boy!

The grand finale of this post is a HUGE shout out and THANK YOU to Rita Whetzel for donating this FABULOUS box of stamps to STC to support our mission! Rita has blessed us with love, prayers, and supplies since the very beginning!  We cannot thank you enough and sincerely appreciate all that you do for STC!

Tune in next week when I share a little coloring medium comparison! Love to all and happy Fall!
Blessings, Jeannette

Never Forget

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Happy Labor Day weekend everyone! 

I think I have finally figured out this holiday...I labor more in honor :)  For my daughter-in-law it must have taken on a whole new meaning last year when she gave birth to my grand-daughter, Ella Elise!  Since I can't be there to help celebrate her first birthday, this card was created to share some sweet sentiments for a sweet girl.  The card uses a relatively new product called Gelato by Faber-Castell to create the color. The gelato colors come in tubes like chapstick and are water reactive. If the tube is rubbed on the stamp and then spritzed with water the colors blend together as shown here with the background stamp and 6 colors. If used to color in a stamp, a small amount is rubbed on and then smeared around with a sponge or finger as I did with the cupcake.  They reminded me of very smooth crayons or when I was little and used to draw with my mother's lipstick (no she was not happy and red left such pretty stains :0). They were pretty messy so I think I will have to play with them some more to see what other techniques I can discover.  Happy Birthday Ella.

Speaking of techniques, check out these sea creatures..sorry the photo is kind of blurry at the bottom.(my daughter is taking a photography class so maybe she can teach me how to take better pictures)  After researching some natural stamping techniques I tried to duplicate the process using rubber stamps. Starting with black paper, I used bleach to stamp the image making sure there was enough bleach to soak into the lines so it came out like a solid image. After the bleach dried and took out the pigment, I inked up the stamp again with Memento Dye markers to add color over top of the bleached area.  When that dried, I inked the stamp around the edges with a white pigment ink and stamped the final layer.  The colors and texture really added dimension and they looked very lifelike. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use them....good thing much of my family live near beaches :) Maybe I will start a new beach Christmas Card trend!

Before starting to think of Christmas Cards, however, I have a list of occasion cards that need to be made. We are thrilled that Stamp to Cope will have a booth at Women's Wellness again this year, the Girl Scouts asked that we put on a project for the local council, and we are planning to have some items in the local art gallery for a fundraising event. To get myself inspired for the mass production needed in such a short timeframe, I went to my favorite technique to make a New Home card for my nephew and his wife...Masking. This house card was made with 4 separate stamps and some post-it notes.  For each stamp a mask is created to cover so new layers can be applied without distortion. The trick is to stamp the items in the forefront first, cover them with the mask made of the same shape and stamp the next layer. Repeat this process until the scene is set and then remove all the masks.  It can get pretty slopping while working and sometimes fussy cutting the masks can be time consuming, but once the masks are gone the depth is great. We wish them all the best as they celebrate first-time home ownership. It did the trick, I have been making cards all weekend.  I am celebrating Labor Day by laboring creatively! 

Love to all,

Jeannette