Snail Cards and Copics

Happy Saturday everyone!! Boy, I don't know what it is about May but it seems to be my busiest time of year. My plans for mass production and male cards are going to be a little delayed...I just haven't been home between subbing and kid's activities to take photos and upload the projects. Whew, I need a break!!

Today, I have yet another SNAIL creation for you. I found this little cutie stamp from Whipper Snapper. Isn't he adorable?????

I'm especially excited to show you this sketch today. I call it the American Flag layout. It's a very loose interpretation of the basic design of the American flag. The main image goes on a square or rectangle that would represent the area where the stars are on the flag. Strips of patterned paper represent the stripes on the flag. Again, this layout enables you to mix and match different patterned papers....without looking too cluttered. Do you love it????
For my cards today, I used more of my SEI Dill Blossom patterned paper that I pulled from my Inspiration Station. I also used layered rectangle Nestabilities, sewing machine stitching (kinda resembles stitching on a flag), and Copic Sketch markers. The sentiment was made using the Simple Alphabet from Papertrey Ink.
The snail on the right side shows the first layer of my Copic colors. One layer which looks very flat, no dimension. The right snail image shows my completed colored snail. I should have taken an in between photo so maybe I'll do another project to show you that. As you can see with my marker colors laying above the snail, I used the lighter colors to lay down the first colors. Then on the right image, you'll see that my colors got darker...light green to dark green, light tan to dark tan.

Here's a little acronym for how I color, I call it the FAB method:

1. First layer of color: Apply the first layer of color to the image with light colored markers. This will be overall coverage with no blending. Your image will look flat.

2. Apply the second layers: Apply the second layer of colors with darker tones of markers into areas where you want shading. You will most likely see a line of separation between your light and dark colors.

3. Blend the dark and light tones together with the lightest marker used. You will use the light tone marker that you used to lay down the base color in step #1 above to do the blending. You can keep going over the areas you want shaded to darken up the area....or you can also use a third marker that is slightly darker than the markers in step #2 above if you want even darker coverage. Always blend with your lightest marker shades from step #1 though. If an area gets too dark, you can always use the blending pen to remove some color.

I'll do a step by step photo presentation of this FAB method when I get some free time. I know a lot of you are hesitant with your Copic markers. That is okay, you just need to keep practicing.....once you learn the basics, you will continue to improve. You can do it.

Manly Cards!!

Edit: The airbrush system that I use is from Copic and is HERE at Ellen's store. You will need THESE refill cans. You can purchase powered air generators but they are a little pricey. Worth the money over the long haul though.....when I find a good one I'll let you know about that too.

Okay, raise your hand if making manly cards is a challenge for you!! (insert me raising my hand high). I feel your pain, girlfriends!! I have hundreds of stamps but when I go to make a manly card, there just isn't a lot to choose from in my stash. Stamp companies are listening though and help is on the way. This week I will be featuring cards suitable for men so come back soon. Today I'm showcasing the Papertrey set called Father Knows Best. I knew with the tree images and various manly sentiments that this would be a good set....but it wasn't until I actually stamped that first tree image that I realized how much I would love it! For this first grouping of cards, I used the tree with leaves, a feel better sentiment and a Father's Day sentiment...along with a row of polka dots from the Papertrey Faux Ribbon stamp set. All of the images are stamped in brown ink. The leaves are stamped in a green and then I used a darker green Copic Sketch marker to add some shadows to the leaves to create depth. I cut and embossed the images with Spellbinder's rectangle Nestabilities, then added some green to the image with my Copic Airbrush system. I left the die template on the rectangle and then airbrushed...this creates a nice crisp border around the image. I learned that tip from Debbie Olson...she's so smart! Notice how I stamped the envelope too to match the card. I used the same polka dot stamp and also the little leaf stamp to tie in with the tree. It's those little details that really make a great card. This card will go to my dad later this month, he's having shoulder surgery.

Here's the inside of the card. I like to add a layer of white cardstock to the inside of cards that have a dark base like this Chocolate Chip color. The writing shows up better. I also stamped *DAD* with some dollar alphabet stamps I found at my local scrapbook store, the polka dot line and some more of those little leaves. Plaid paper is from My Mind's Eye.
Here's another set of Father's Day cards I did using the circles tree topper from the Father Knows Best set. I stamped the tree topper part in a green then colored in some circles randomly with Copic Sketch markers. I also added some brown dots to manly up the card a bit. Brown brads finish off the main image. And check out the sentiment, such a good one! The patterned paper is from Crate Paper, base color is SU! Wild Wasabi.
Note: I try to answer a lot of your questions....so look back to older posts and I will put an *edited* blurb at the top of the post. This way everything will stay with it's particular post.

Spellbinder's Nestabilities: My favorite Nesties are the rectangles and squares, followed by circles then ovals in that order. That's how I tend to use them the most. I highly suggest purchasing the scallop shapes that go with the solid shapes. I use the Spellbinder's Wizard to cut out my dies. It's a heavy duty all metal tool but it does require some cranking...stay tuned for the motorized version of the Wizard coming soon. It will do all the work for you! I haven't heard of any updates on the release date of this machine but I will update when I find out.

Okay, gotta run. I'm off to the dreaded dentist appointment. UGH! Stay tuned this week for more manly cards using Lockhart stamps.....and some more tips on mass producing cards. I've been stamping like crazy to fill orders!

Garden Clogs

I had a lot of fun creating this card. Coloring the image and getting those Lockhart Garden Clogs to look all muddy was a fun challenge. After I colored the image with Copic Sketch markers, I took a brown marker and pounced all over the shoes. Don't worry about ruining the Copic Sketch marker tips. They hold up to the test and stay pointy. And check out the sky and the grass. If you zoom in, you'll see that the colors are really laid down very loosely and sketch like. By meeting the green grass color with the blue sky, there is instantly the indication of a horizon line....no need to create beautifully rendered skies. The markers do the work for you and as long as you give a hint of grass and sky, the viewer will get the picture. When you're zooming in, I believe this photo below gives a crisper image of the colors. I finished up the main layer with a cut and embossed Spellbinder's rectangle, which was then matted on a brown scallop cut rectangle. You'll be noticing some fun card sketches that have *house themes* to them. Maybe it's my interior design background, but for some reason one evening I sketched pages and pages of sketches that had themes of rooms, appliances, etc. I named this sketch Grandma's Living Room. There is a "photo" on the wall which is where the main image goes. Then the bottom portion of the card has strips of patterned paper which resemble mismatched "wallpaper" or "wainscoting/paneling". The horizontal strip above the patterned paper is where the sentiment goes and acts as a "chair rail". Funny what the mind thinks up some evenings, huh?
One great thing about this card layout is that you can use lots of patterned paper and it all looks good! Don't worry about being so matchy matchy all the time......mix it up, get a little quirky and slap it on there. Do you think your Grandma worried about those layers of wallpaper she slapped on the wall? Nahhhh, she loved it! Yes, you're paying for it now because after removing 5 layers of that stuff, it gets a little old. LOL! Here I used some SEI Dill Seed paper from my nature themed Inspiration Station. Something else you could try is selecting papers from different companies....shoot for a similar color scheme and go shopping through your paper stash....or look for similar flowers,etc. Some of my favorite projects are ones where there's just a little something quirky thrown in. It's fun, try it!

Simple Flower Stationery

Edit #2: More answers to your questions: I cut my own cards from a 8.5 x 11 sheet of cardstock, two from each sheet then score....or score once then cut the sheet in half. Most of my card sizes are A2 size or 4.25" x 5.5". This card opens up, it's not a single layer. The ribbon wraps around the front flap of the card, not the entire card. So when you open up the card, you will see a flat piece of the ribbon on the top portion of the inside of the card. Very simple card.

Edit #1: Just to clarify, the ribbon is ONE piece of ribbon. It wraps around the card front and the two ends meet up in the front. Hope that helps!

I'm still on my simple stationery kick. I love the look of Papertrey's polka dot satin ribbon and thought it would be pretty to use instead of my usual strip of patterned paper for an accent piece. So I gathered up my Summer Sunrise color collection of ribbon, card stock and ink and began creating. I also used the PT stamp set called Garden of Life and my Spellbinder's square Nestabilities. To make the the card look professional, I didn't want the ribbon ends to show anywhere. Easy peasy solution. I placed a strip of super sticky double sided tape on the front of the card, as shown on the left side below. I cut a strip of ribbon to fit around my card and stuck the ends of the ribbon to tape. Using this type of tape instead of regular adhesive will help ensure that the ribbon stays put and doesn't pop up.
Then I simply covered the ribbon ends with my main stamped image piece. I stamped the flower with Lemon Tart first then did the *rock and roll* technique with Summer Sunrise. To do this, you simply stamp your image in a lighter color then roll the edges of the stamped image in a slightly darker color. Then you stamp the image. You can see the contrast a little bit better in the finished photo below this one.
For the main image, I cut out and embossed a simple Nestabilities square. I matted the main image on to a scallop cut square. These were adhered to the card fronts with SU! dimensionals. The sentiment at the bottom of the card reads *Friends are the flowers in the garden of life*. That's one of my all time favorite sentiments because I love flowers so much.
Sooo, these will go into packages of cards that I'm assembling for my mom and mother in law for Mother's Day. They know that an assortment of cards comes with every gift they receive. We'll go pick out their traditional Mother's Day flower basket this week. And for Mother's Day, I always ask for flowers too.......but not bouquets, I love to go pick out my own for this year's flower beds. Jordan and I decided that this year's color will be yellow!! Can't wait.

Bird House Road

Hi everyone, it looks like a beautiful day is here so I'm going to head outside soon. DH bought the girls a go cart!! Today will be their first day to ride it when they get home from their Girl Scout trip.....so it should be a fun day!!

I couldn't wait to show you these cards today. I just love they way they turned out. A little vintage look going on and a super fun image called Main Street (isn't that too cute?)from Whipper Snapper. Once again, designed by my super talented friend Anna Wight(Sweet Miss Daisy). All of Anna's images are fairly big, which I love, because there's lots of room for coloring. I colored the images with Copic markers that matched my new Pink Paislee patterned paper. The paper is slightly distressed so I shabbied up my main image with some Creamy Caramel SU! ink and my new Ranger Ink Blending Tool. I love it when I find a new tool that is inexpensive and works like a charm. The pads that adhere to the wooden handle are soft and spongy and they blend ink like a dream. Yes, you need one. I purchased some refill sponges too and use similar colors on one sponge and keep them in a baggy.....greens on one sponge, reds on anothe sponge, etc. The sentiment is from AMuse, one of my favorites that I reach for often. I thought it added a fun twist to the card and would help make the perfect friendship type cards. The old buttons are an auction purchase. They all are threaded too, I can just picture some little old lady recycling buttons off her husband's old work shirts. Ohhhhh, and I about forgot to mention the new looooong rectangle Spellbinder's Nestabilities templates. I used the plain rectangles to cut and emboss the main image....and I used a scallop die template to cut out the bird patterned paper at the top. Works perfectly, I love them. Yes, you need them and you can find them at Ellen's online store. I have a close teacher friend that is going to possibly be doing some house swapping with some family members. Her family and her inlaws may swap houses so that my friend's husband could be closer to their cattle ranch. My friend is not super excited about it at this point because she's done a lot of work on her house and it will be a much further drive to work and school activities. I thought this would be a nice card to send her to let her know that even though she'll be further away, it's still just a hop and a skip away.
I threw in my card sketch so you can add another one to your collection, hope you enjoy. Well DH's off to pick my girls and I can't wait to see their curly red heads!! Have a great day and enjoy your family today!

Iced Coffees

Okay guys, I have our winner of the set of four Crafty Secrets Images and Journal Notes pad. Congratulations to Stefanie (Hi Stevie!) Email me your snail mail address and Sandy from Crafty Secrets will send out your goody package!!! Thank you to everyone for your great responses. There's a lot of coffee drinkers out there for sure!!!

Stefanie Staniak said...
Mish I love your card and your sister will too! I have to confess, Sambuca or Ameretto in my coffee is always a special treat !! LOL !! I'll bring some to retreat ! :)While we're on the topic of coffee, I thought today's post would be perfect. Do you like iced coffees? I LOVE them and could drink several a day...but I usually settle for about one a week when I'm in town. For under $2 bucks, McDonald's has awesome iced coffees!

Check it out here(I hope this link works):

http://blog.gourmet-coffee-zone.com/2008/04/08/mcdonalds-iced-coffee-smart-and-savvy-advertising/

Last year, I was vacationing at my sister's in Colorado. Every time we went out and about, we stopped at a McDonald's for an iced coffee. We saw an employee making them so we jotted down what we saw him doing. Since then we've been making iced coffees at home and they are GOOD! Jordan loves them too but I have to cut her off, she gets too wired! At the coaxing of my sister, I drank TWO LARGE iced coffees one day and boy was I bouncing off the walls. I was so geared up I couldn't sleep all night. My eyes wouldn't even shut!

So I decided that my recipe file needs that recipe before I forget it. I made a recipe card for my sister too. She'll get a kick out of the little story that I wrote on the card. I typed the recipe on my computer and printed it off on cardstock and cut to size. Patterned paper strip is from Cosmo Cricket. The cute stamp is an Itty Bitty Lockhart image called Hot Chocolate, perfect for coffee too. I used the new long oval Nestabilities from Spellbinder's, they are so awesome...great for those stamped images that need a skinnier space. The coffee mugs are colored in with Copic markers, originally embossed with coffee scented embossing powder but mine must have been too old....smelled good in the jar but the scent disappeared when I embossed it.
Well, back to my stamping table.....DH is umpiring a baseball tournament for the little boys til supper time, the girls are away on their Girl Scout trip......what's a girl to do but........STAMP!!!

Nature Inspiration Station

Edited: Hey everyone, just popping in to answer a few questions.

1. The Weight Watcher's cook book that had the coconut pie recipe is called WW 5 ingredients, 15 minutes...it's one of those magazine type cookbooks and the date said display til Feb 19, 2008, so not sure if it's till available.

2. The two large snail stamps are from Whipper Snapper and can be found under the Sea Life category, I believe. The small snail is a Karen Lockhart creation and can be purchased at Ellen's online store. DeeDee, your snail card on your blog is adorable.....I have a friend that has that Cricut cartridge so I can get some cut from her. Thanks for the head's up though, cute!! Isn't funny that the snails are in such demand right now!?

3. Winners for the Crafty Secrets prize drawing will be announced tomorrow, along with another Crafty Secrets prize drawing! Sandy from Crafty Secrets is so generous, she wants to give away MORE goodies!!

Here's my new Inspiration Station. My theme this time seems to revolve around NATURE. I get so inspired this time of year from all of the singing birds, the green grass and blooming flowers, garden seeds and plants, the sounds of frogs in the creek, muddy boots and dirt in my fingernails, warmer weather.......ahhh, I love this time of year!

I found this collection of SEI papers called Dill Blooms and I LOVE IT! I really love the look of these basic botanical images with their long stems, spiky blooms and colorful leaves. And the colors remind me of the 70's colors I grew up with....burnt oranges, olive greens, browns, golden yellows, creamy colors and turquoise.
I had fun shopping in my own stash of adornments. I love to dig through all of my ribbons, buttons and flowers for goodies to add to my projects.
And the botanical images are very noticeable this year it seems. These stamps and cut images are new from Crafty Secrets. Love them!
And SNAILS. I dunno why but these little creepy critters have won my heart over. Now I'm looking everywhere for snails!

Now this next batch of goodies switches gears a little bit. It's bright, it's fun, it's girly, it's cheerful......it's FUN! It's a series of papers from K and Company called Berry Sweet, I believe. Still very nature oriented though but on the bright side.....lots of funky and fresh flowers, butterflies, cherries, strawberries, owls, fish and more. I'm loving these papers for little girly gifts and stationery.
And here's one of my first cards made using the SEI Dill Blossom papers. I paired it up with the Whipper Snapper stamp called Louise, designed by Sweet Miss Daisy herself....Anna Wight! This image caught my eye because when Josey was a wee little girl, I would lay in bed at night with her. A little mouse (my index finger) would sneak beneath the covers and come visit Josey every time I layed down with her. Mousy, as Josey named her, would talk to Josey and wiggle around and tickle her, and rub her arm.......all under the covers because she was too shy to come out. Ohhhh, how Josey loved that little *mouse*. She would pet her and hug her and give her kisses....I can still hear her sweet little voice say *hiiiii Mousy*. And when we moved to our new house in the country, amazingly Mousy moved with us!! Oh, the memories we make. I think I'll mail this card to Josey and sign it from Mousy. She'll get quite a kick out of that!

Okay, enough of memory lane. I've got sweet party mix to make for the big Girl Scout trip my girls are going on this weekend. I'm Nervous Nellie thinking about my girls being gone for three days!! But I'm still going to take advantage of the free time and make a date with my favorite fella. Dinner? A movie? Buy some flowers for the garden? Hmmm, who knows!

Mini Coconut Cream Pies Recipe

EDITED: Here's the recipe in typed format. For Nessie in the UK, Cool Whip would be the same as whipped cream with a little sugar in it. As for my recipe binder, here's the information I have: C.R. Gibson 1-800-243-6004 or go to the website HERE. They still have the recipes books and the refills. The refills I have are the QP12 size which fit two 4 x 6 recipe cards.

Mini Coconut Cream Pies (serves 6)

1 (1 oz) pkg sugar free vanilla instant pudding
2 cups milk
3 oz FF cream cheese
8 oz Lite Cool Whip
6 T. Toasted coconut, divided
1 teaspoon coconut extract 6 mini graham cracker crusts

Prepare pudding mix according to package directions using 2 cups milk. Blend in cream cheese and 3/4 cup Cool Whip. Stir in 1/4 cup coconut and coconut extract. Spoon about 1/3 cup pudding mixture into each crust. Top with a dollop of Cool Whip and the rest of the toasted coconut just before serving. 252 calories

As you know, my husband and I have been dieting. We're kind of at a stand still right now but we are refocused this week and are back on track! One thing that I cannot resist is dessert. But instead of a big pan of cookies or decadent pies, I make desserts less often and usually in individual serving sizes. So when I found this recipe in a Weight Watcher's cookbook for Mini Coconut Cream Pies, I drooled right on the page!! They taste exactly like homemade coconut cream pie. My family deemed these as *a keeper*....that's what they always say when they like a recipe! Here's the recipe in the actual cookbook. I usually have to tweek a recipe here and there so I end up scribbling all over the recipe book. It's not very often that I make a recipe exactly as called for.

So I was having so much fun making recipe cards that I decided to make another. I didn't have a coconut cream pie stamp (LOL!) so I had to improvise. I chose the *pie oh my* and *enjoy* stamp from Karen Lockhart. I typed out the recipe on my computer and printed it out on white cardstock. The fonts are called CK Becky for the script and AFL nonmetric for the type style print. Friends sent those to me so I'm not sure where to acquire them. Coconut Cream Pie is always a creamy yellow color so Papertrey's Lemon Tart cardstock and matching polka dot satin ribbon were just the colors I was looking for. I cut the *enjoy* circle out with Spellbinder's circle and scallop circle Nestabilities Die Templates and used a white brad to secure the ribbon snippet.
And into my recipe book went the recipe card. I love it! This is a fun little project to do when you just want to create.....no pressure, just for fun, just for you. Enjoy! (I believe you can see the recipe if you zoom in)

Note: Don't forget to sign up for the Crafty Secrets Images and Journal Notes drawing. Go to yesterday's post and leave a comment. I'll draw two winners tomorrow.