Coloring Red

There is a super tutorial on coloring with red markers over at I Like Markers - and I had to give it a try. My first attempt was my apple --- done in the "old fashioned" way of coloring the whole image with little circles of light then adding the darker colors and finally finishing with the original light color as a blender. Next I tried my octopus image with lots of feathering and no little circles. Then I sampled paper with the digi flowerpot - lots of people say SU is hard to work on, but I found the SU worked pretty well for me. The flowerpot is from Designed 2 Delight - you can get a free image there every week to play with.

Now ... do I chop them apart and make cards or save them as samples. hmmm. Dilemma.

Event Planner Amy Atlas

Amy Atlas creates events - and a lot of inspiration. Here is a card I made and you can see the inspiration on my computer screen.

Blog Hop Grunge ... Tribute to Amy

The Theme of this month's blog hop at Firecracker is GRUNGE ... and I decided to make it a real challenge and create an orchid/grunge card. This digital image is available over at Firecracker Designs along with a lot of other fun stuff.

The official start time of this Hop is Friday, at 8:00 AM (EST). If you arrived early, please be patient as all the links may not be live yet.

This is a “circular blog hop” where the beginning is wherever you start!! You will know you are at the end of your blog hop when you’ve come back to the blog you’ve started. We'll all be showing a different interpretation of grunge this month. Your comment at each blog will give you another chance to win a special treat. If you win, you will be contacted by Pamela via e-mail (so be sure to leave it with your comment.) and you can also find out on Pamela’s blog after the blog hop ends on Mon, at 8:00 PM (EST). If you want to hop right now, Chrissy is next on the list. Hop HERE ... or read the tutorial, there is another link at the end.



My card uses a digital image of an orchid from Firecracker. First I printed it on light brown cardstock and colored it with copics. Then I used a white pencil to lighten the places I wanted to add highlights. My prismacolor colored pencils worked great for highlighting.





I got some shelf lining at the dollar store. It makes a wonderful pattern on your brayer if you ink up your brayer, then run the brayer over the shelf runner before putting it on your paper. By running it over some Tim Holtz grunge letters, I was able to remove the ink from the letters creating the " Amy" outline that you see. I layered the grunge letters on top of the outlines, off-setting them a bit.

After cutting out my image, I roughed up the edges with a scissors. Then I layered everything together, added some embellishments, and I have a card ready for my dear friend. The digital drawing is of one of her favorite orchids.

So this card is my tribute to my favorite muse, Amy - she inspires me and cheers me on no matter what I do.


Now, to continue the circle, you will need to hop on over to Chrissy's Creations
and keep going until you’ve come back to where you’ve started!  Click on "comments" below to leave a comment with your email address and get another chance to win some Firecracker Rubber Stamps!

Another Wednesday sketch card

Another image I colored, this time with gray and red, and just a little yellow.  The image was free at Designed 2 Delight.

Wednesday Sketch Day!

I really had fun with this sketch. To start with, I love the orchid I drew for Amy and keep using it on card after card. Next I used soft suede which I also really find very pretty. The coloring came out just right - I was coloring a bunch of red things this morning and working on my technique of coloring. I can't believe I said that ... over 60 years old and she is practicing her coloring ... never thought the day would come.

I will be posting all my red coloring this weekend when I am gone to a brayer workshop with Michelle Zindorf in Wheaton, IL. So you can expect a lot more brayering next week!

Teapot Tuesday

If it is Tuesday, it is time for a teapot. I might head back to bed and make the card after the sun struggles its way up into the sky. Mike had to fly out at 6 am today so he had me up at 4 when he tripped over the dog dish in the kitchen after tiptoeing out of the bedroom. There I was in my nice warm snuggly and kept thinking, gee, I should really get up and say goodbye. By the time I crawled out of bed, I managed to see the taillights of the car as he left the driveway.

My son gave me the most beautiful stamps for my birthday. The lighthouse one is layered wood, clearly chosen by someone who appreciates fine wood ... and the cube of 4 ships has me yearning for the ocean. So this card was a cinch to make. It's too bad I left my treasure of teensy starfish to embellish in Florida - was saving them for a perfect inspiration.

Update ... finally got the card posted - 7:30 PM !!! Please don't even notice that the "ship's knot" on the lighthouse piece is really not an official boy scouty knot at all. CORRECTION ... it is a lark's head. If it has a name, it is official. ( Thanks Juliet!)

Christmas Card Challenge -- May cards

The card on the right was my prototype --- then I decided that putting sticky tape on and trying to capture fine glitter was not the way to go with the snowflakes. Plus I really preferred coloring the snowmen with copics instead of marker and puff paint. So the cards on the left were the final product.

A card for Cathleen

A card for Cathleen, featured stamper at Splitcoast today.