Anna Wight's Snail with Flowerpot

Me again, be sure to read the post below to see who our lucky prize winner was for today's drawing.

Now on with the cards. You know how sometimes something just strikes your fancy? Well for me right now, it's Snails!! I don't know why, I just really like them!! And my friend Anna Wight has an adorable snail in her Whipper Snapper collection. I just had to have it! It's called Snail with Flower Pot. It's so nice to work with good ol' red rubber and wood stamps. They stamp so great and Anna's image is nice and big to work with. Be sure to visit Anna's blog for some wonderful inspiration and to see her cute farm critters. Hi Anna!!

As always, I start out my designs by matching up my Copic Sketch markers with my patterned paper. This paper is from My Mind's Eye. You can see my Copic color charts tucked underneath the patterned paper. To get the true color of the marker, you really need to develop some sort of color chart. I simply created a chart in my word processing program, printed it out blank and filled in ALL of the Copic color numbers. This way I can add the colors as I collect them and it's a good way to see what color areas you are missing.

To select my marker colors, I simply hold my chart up next to my patterned paper and scan the chart for the perfect colors. It's really amazing the color ways that Copic has, over 300 colors! I always find just the right color. Once I find that perfect color, I usually grab the color just a shade darker also so that I can do some shading and blending. Many of you have started your collection of Copic markers and I am so happy to hear that! If you are a big fan of colored stamp images, you need them. Plain and simple, YES, you need them. Your stamped images will just come to life, trust me. So here are my finished cards. I used Spellbinder's Nestabilities to mat the main image. For the sentiment, I stamped it using Papertrey's new clear alphabet. Don't you just love this sentiment? Slow down...Relax. Get it? Snails, slowwwww. LOL!
I wanted to show you this angle of my card so that you could see that I raised the sentiment up on pop dots. Just another way to add dimension to your cards. By stamping the sentiment on a separate strip of white paper, I could mass produce some sentiments for future use...and also pitch any sentiments that got smeared, etc.
Here's another trio of the darling snail. Remember my Spring Inspiration Station? This Making Memories Garden Party paper and epoxy stickers comes straight from that basket. It's my favorite collection right now. Be sure to zoom in to see the glittery paper on the bottom of the cards. Oh, and I add some more of the Ranger Glossy Accents that you're all loving. Every snail needs a slimy, sticky body!
Hope you all have a chance to sloooow down and relax!