Masculine Cards and Copics

After spending an evening making feminine cards, I was in the mood for something different. I felt like coloring, too, so I stamped these images from Peace, Be Still by The Angel Company.

I really didn't know what I was going to do with them when I started coloring. After I got this first one done, I knew I wanted to put blue and brown behind it. When I looked through my Cuttlebug Embossing Folders, I saw this one and figured it could look just like crashing waves! I embossed DCWV paper, then sanded it lightly.

Ok, I'll admit that I was clueless as to how I wanted to begin to color this image so I cheated. I looked at Debra Miller's card on page 88 of TAC's last catty. She colors so beautifully, that I just sorta went with what she had already done. Mine's not exactly like hers, but I'm please with how it turned out. The sentiment is from that same new stamp set that I can't put down. Don't you just love a great vertical sentiment?!?!? :-)

Maggie Floral Vase

Remember that new stamp Market Street Stamps set that I first showed you here? Well, I just can't quit using it! The flowers are supposed to look kind of like those blue-ish, purple-ish hydrangeas that you see, so I used watercolor crayons to color on the stamp before misting with water. It's interesting that the acrylic stamps don't react the same way as rubber with this technique. It took about six attempts until I was happy with the results.

The other coloring you see is with Copics, and the paper is from TAC's Maggie collection
I wanted to show you the inside of the card because the sentiment is such a good one and it's pretty too! Me likes the way the font ties the outside and inside together. :-)

Variations on Floral Vases

I've always loved the simplicity of this vase and flower set so it was fun to pull it out and play with it again. If you haven't yet, you might want to go back and look at yesterday's post--it has the first two cards I made the other day while using this set.
I used the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder but did not use Glossy Accents this time.

I'm honestly not too sure about the card below. Something about it doesn't seem right to me? Is it my experimental brown dot background instead of the usual blues? Is it the color palette (I pulled them all from TAC's Juliette, though)? Is it just a bad layout/design? If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear. I'm leaning toward teh fact that the brown dot background looks so busy to me...

First Day of Fall Blog Hop

Yep! You're getting two posts in one day! The other one was pre-scheduled, and then my former Angel friends announced a blog hop to celebrate the first day of fall. This stamp set is the same one that I used in this post, and I thought these flowers looked like the wild sunflowers that grow along the roads here in Kansas in the fall.
I colored the image with my copics and left off the Glossy Accents this time. The card base is brown (even though it looks black in this photo), so the colors have a true "fall feel."
Now hop on over to the blogs of my Angel buddies!

More Floral Vases

If you read yesterday's post, you know that I'm a softie for floral arrangements in vases. While I was waiting for my new stamps to come (see yesterday's post), I pulled out this really old TAC set and played with it.

I colored with Copics and added Stickles to the middle of the flowers. To make the vase look ceramic, I used Glossy Accents. I'm still working on my Copic shadows for grounding. :-) Oh, and if you look really close, you can see the little flowers on the bottom half. It is a single flower that I stamped repeatedly with Bordeaux.

After doing the first card, I decided to see what wold happen with the solid vase. Would you believe I had NEVER used that part of the set before?!?!? After stamping it, I used Copic markers to give it depth and a shadow along the right side (kinda hard to see in the picture). I used the Stardust Clear Gelly Pen in the flower centers.

Again, Glossy Accents on the vase. Brilliance Moonlight White added the textured look I wanted.

Come back tomorrow for 2 more cards using this set.

New Stamps!

For some reason, I am ALWAYS drawn to floral stamps--especially flower arrangement in "clear vases." When I saw this card by my friend Laurie, I knew I wanted that stamp set. Plus, it seems I'm always needing more sympathy sayings. This set from Market Street Stamps had it all!

As soon as it arrived, I inked it up and made this quick card. I started with these flowers because I didn't have time to do much coloring. One thing I'm not very happy with on this card is how the Glossy Accents turned the vase so yellow. I had never used it on ivory cardstock until now, so at least I'll know what to expect in the future!
I colored the "water" with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. I didn't have much time to color, and I'm still trying to master my Copic technique so I figured this was faster. :-) There are two lines above and below the main image--I did those with my Scor-Pal. Love that thing!

Another Version of the CASEd Card

Yesterday I showed you a card by Heather, my CASE and another similar card. I made this one at the same time, but if you hadn't seen yesterday's post, you may not realize that it was inspired by the same card. It just kept getting further and further from the original. :-)

For this one, I stamped the flower all three times without re-spritzing the stamp. You can't really see it in the photo, but I stamped several more times to fill in the white space. The die is from the same Tim Holz Mini Butterflies set. I sponged the edges of this one with Bordeaux and glued it flat this time.

Couldn't decide how I wanted to adhere my sentiment panel. I ended up with it overlapping a bit and rounding a corner. Best option? I'm not sure...