Coloring with Markers

Coloring my images is not my strongest point and especially coloring with markers. I love my SU! markers because all the colors match the paper which matches the brads, which matches the ribbon, etc, etc. You get the idea. But I've always had problems with coloring with markers because I get those yucky marker lines. Well, I found a great tutorial on Split Coast Stampers recently that showed how to color with markers and blender pens. For my first try, I don't think I did too bad.

I've thought about trying the Copic markers and actually bought a couple but I really couldn't see spending all that money for more markers when I already the whole line of SU! markers. This tutorial from Split Coast is good. I like it because it has both the instructions written out and a video. I'll tell you some direcions for it but for a more through tutorial, go to Split Coast Stampers and search for Marker Layering.

Materials needed:
Patterned paper, I used a piece from Twitterpated which is retired 4 x 5 1/4"
Gumball Green cardstock 4 1/4 x 5 1/2"
White cardstock or white watercolor paper
Fabulous Florets (#123027)3/8"
Striped Organdy ribbon, Melon Mambo (#129293)
Pink Pirouette marker
Regal Rose marker
Melon Mambo marker
Basic Gray marker
Black Staz On ink pad
Gumball Green ink
Melon Mambo ink
Aqua Painter (#103954) or Blender Pens (#102845)
Spong Dauber (#102892)
Stampin' Dimensionals (#104430)

1. Stamp your outline images on white cardstock or watercolor paper with black Staz On ink. The watercolor paper will do a better job but cardstock will work.
2. Start with your lightest color marker, Pink Pirouette, and begin coloring your petals. Work with one petal at a time. Use the blender pen or aqua painter to spread the color over the entire petal. Remember, you can always add more color but once the color is there, you can't take it away. Start the petal near the center of the flower and work outward.
3. Next add color to the same petal with the next lightest color, Regal Rose. Don't cover the entire petal but start with a small amount near the flower center. Use the blender pen to make small circles and blend in the marker lines on the petal. Add your final color closest to the center of the flower. Again, use your blender pen to work the color in with the other colors so that the color is lighter at the outer edge of the petals and darker toward the center of the petal.
4. Go to the next petal and repeat the same process. Working one petal at a time, complete all the petals on the flower. Use the Basic Gray marker to outline the petals. This will help them to pop a bit more.
5. Cut out the petals and lay them aside for a bit.
6. On the green patterned paper, stamp 5 of the long stemmed leaves in Gumball Green ink.
7. Wrap the ribbon around the bottom of the piece and tie a bow. Adhere with your adhesive to the paper.
8. Use Stampin' Dimensionals on the backs of two of the flowers that you've colored. Place them on the leaves stamped. The third flower can be place flat with adhesive.
9. Stamp the saying from the set on white cardstock in Melon Mambo ink. Cut around the saying. Use a sponge dauber to add Gumball Green to the edges of the saying. Adhere it to the top right corner of the patterned paper.
10. Adhere this to the larger green cardstock. Place the card front on to a card base and add your greeting or note to the inside.

Hope you had fun coloring with your markers today. If you don't like how they came out, try again. Michangelo probably didn't like his first try either!

Colored Lace

After learning to color and emboss at the same time from Wednesday, Aug. 14 post, I had fun playing around with the ink on my other embossing folders. These are using the Delicate Designs (#127023) embossing folder. I wondered what it would look like with  the opposite side colored. The top picture is using Bermuda Bay ink the way I showed you last Wednesday. Apply the ink inside the side with the Stampin' Up logo. The bottom one would be the debossed side. I applyed the ink to the opposite side to get this effect. I think both of them are pretty but it just depends on what you want on your project.

For this card, I used the embossed look with the ink applied to the logo side.

Materials needed:
So Saffron cardstock 5 1/2 x 8 1/2" scored and folded at 4 1/4"
Whisper White cardstock
Bermuda Bay cardstock
Bermuda Bay ink
Taken with Teal marker
So Saffron marker
Daffodil Delight marker
Delicate Designs embossing folder (#127023)
Secret Garden stamp set (#129144)
Secret Garden Framelits Dies (#129372)
Very Vintage Designer Buttons (#129327)
Mini glue dots (#103683)
Stampin' Dimensionals (#104430)
Beige or Ecru floss

1. Color and emboss the lace from the Delicate Designs embossing folder with Bermuda Bay In Color ink using the technique from last Wednesday. Trim the embossed area and attach to the bottom edge of the folded So Saffron cardstock. Trim the So Saffron around the edge of the embossed design.
2. Using markers, color the flower stamp from the Secret Garden stamp set. I colored the outer petals Taken with Teal and the inner ones with Daffodil Delight or So Saffron. Stamp one with Bermuda Bay ink on Bermuda Bay cardstock.
3. Use the Secret Garden Framelits Dies and your Big Shot machine to cut out the 3 flowers. Use adhesive to place two flowers on the card as shown. Trim the edge that hangs over the card even with the edge of the card. Put 3 Stampin' Dimensionals on the third flower and place it above the other two.
4. Thread the floss through the Very Vintage button. Place glue dots on the back of the button and press onto the card just about the lacey strip on the left hand side.
5. Since I used the So Saffron for my card base, it is not necessary to attach the card front to the card base. With a light colored cardstock like So Saffron, you can stamp or write a greeting or note on the inside of your card.
Have a scrappy good day and God bless you as you make cards for others.

Color and Emboss

After I learned this technique recently, I couldn't wait to try it out and share it with you! It's so easy that it's almost like a "why didn't I think of that" moment.

Materials needed:
Honeycomb Textured Impressions Embossing Folder (#129378)
Big Shot machine
Raining Flowers stamp set (#122767)
Every Little Bit stamp set (#120558)
Hung Up Cute Clips (#129389)
Crushed Curry In Color ink pad
Bermuda Bay In Color ink pad
Coastal Cabana In Color ink pad
Brown Sugar In Color ink pad
Taken with Teal marker
Stampin Dimensionals (#104430)
Whisper White cardstock 4 1/4 x 5 1/2"
scraps of Very Vanilla cardstock
3/16" Corner rounder punch (#119871)
1" Circle punch (#119868)
1 3/8" Circle punch (#119860)
Brayer (#102395)


1. Stamp your images and cut them out first. Any time you are using a 2 step stamp set, be sure you stamp the lighter color first. Then stamp the darker color over the lighter one. 
    a. Cut the hyacinth flower image to be 3 3/4 x 1 3/4"    
    b. Punch all 4 corner of this with the corner rounder.
    c. Stamp your other flowers. Punch the smaller one with the 1" circle punch. Punch the larger one with
the 1 3/8" circle punch. Stamp a bee from the Every Little Bit stamp set in Brown Sugar In Color. Cut loosly around the bee. Lay these pieces aside.
2. Use a piece of 1 1/4 x 2 1/5" Very Vanilla cardstock to hand write your title. I don't have a Bermuda Bay marker so I used my Taken with Teal marker. I think it still looks good. Round each of the corners. Slip the clip on the corner of the tag.

3.  Place a Stampin Dimensional inside the clip on the back. This will hold the clip in place and give dimension to your greeting. Place 2-3 additional dimensionals on the back of the tag.

4. Make your embossed background using your Honeycomb embossing folder and your Big Shot machine.
  Run your brayer over the Crushed Curry ink until it is covered with ink.

5. You will want to run the brayer with color on to the larger side of the embossing folder. This is the side that has the Stampin Up logo on it. Run the brayer across the inside of the embossing folder.

6. Place your white cardstock inside the folder and run it through your Big Shot machine on Tab 1. After you take the folder and the paper out, it will look like this.

Run the folder under cool water to wash the ink off the embossing folder.
7. Now it's time to assemble your card. Adhere the long flower on the left hand side of the honeycomb background. Put a dimensional under the bee and place her near the top of this flower.
8. Adhere the larger circle flower onto the card. Place a dimensional under the 1" circle flower and slightly overlap it onto the other circle flower.
9. With the dimensions on the back of your greeting and clip, adhere this to the top right side of the card.
10. Adhere all of the card front onto your card base.
Send this to a friend to cheer them up or just to say hi. Have fun stamping and card making!

But I can't draw!

I hear that phrase too often or how about "I'm not creative." I refuse to accept either of these statements in any of my classes. These days there are so many people who have already done the drawing for you that all you have to do is learn a few little tricks. That what I'm going to try to share with you today, a couple of little tricks for beginners to add to their crafting.

1. First, let's take a look at these two groups of stamped images.

These were made with the same stamps and basically the same colors. The stamp set is Animal Stories (#116716) from SU! 2009-2010 catalog.

2. The big difference in the two is that the top one looks like stamped images floating on a piece of paper. The bottom looks like a forest scene. Well, sort of, I've never actually seen a rabbit that was Melon Mambo. What makes it different? The grass. So this is when you say "I can't draw." And I say that you don't have to. All I did was use my thin tip of my Old Olive marker to make some scribbles that look like grass. Go around the base(feet) of the animals & tree making a series of n's, w's, & v's. Some of them are connected together. Some aren't. That's all it takes for a grass look, letters that you learned how to make in kindergarten and you can run them together, just like you did when you were in kindergarten! lol

3. Next, we have two manly birthday cards using the popular Loads of Love (#115022) and Loads of Fun (#115197) stamp sets.

It's a really basic card. I used Marina Mist cardstock for the background, some leftover patterned paper from Summer Smooches DSP((#125409), whisper white cardstock, brads from Everyday Enchantment brad package, and my large oval (#119855) punch.

4. Of course, the color on the truck is a big part of the difference in the cards. I colored it with my Stampin' Pastels (#120962). Pastels is my favorite coloring medium. I find it very easy to blend colors and you can erase your mistakes. YES, you can erase the pastels with an art gum eraser if you mess up!

5. Another difference is that the truck in the second card is not floating in space. While Lt. Paris did find an old 1937 truck floating in the Gamma quadrant in Star Trek Voyager, it's not too often that this really happens. In addition to adding grass around and under your images, you can also add shading. After all, there will be shadows under a truck sitting in the driveway so you need some shadows under the truck on your card. I used a dark green, a lighter green & a little bit of black pastel to blend these together. Be careful with the black. You don't want to use too much or it will look more like mud than shadow. Use a q-tip/cotton swab or your fingers to blend the colors together. Spend a little bit of time practicing on extra paper but it shouldn't take you too long to get the hang of it. Pastels are actually very forgiving!

6. Here are some other shadows for the truck image.

To make these shadows, I used my Watercolor Pencils(#101879), my second favorite coloring medium. I also used 2 Stampin' Write markers on this. I don't like to use these markers to color because I make messes with them. I do use them for writing and line drawing. The shadow under the truck was made with the Watercolor Pencils and a blender pen. It gives you a lighter shadow under the truck & it can be more controlled than the pastels. It's easier to put the color from the pencils exactly where you want them. You then use the blender pen to shade & pull the color out to make lighter areas.

I hope these little tips helped you some. Come back Thursday & I'll have some more tips for beginning paper crafters.