AlexSyberiaDesign May Digi Stamp Release Blog Hop + Giveaway

Welcome to a very exciting event!!  I am privileged to guest design along with a stellar group of designers in celebration of the newly released Alex Syberia Designs plus a blog hop and giveaway!  I’ve been a big fan of Alex’s images for quite some time as you know if you follow my blog!  I’m a bit flower-crazy and she is all about flowers!  My card features a spankin’ new design called Full Bloom which I printed out in a 4X6 size thus getting two big images on one sheet of cardstock.  I spent a happy time coloring these luscious blooms with Copic markers.  As always, I use many colors so I can’t provide a list of those for you.  I also regret not remembering to set up my camera to either snap many progress photos or make a video!  

I did get a shot of this stage of my card! After coloring Full Bloom, I decided to fussy-cut it in order to mount onto a stenciled background.  As you can see, I ended up cutting the yellow blossom completely off the main panel because I wanted to fit it onto an A2 card and create a layer with it!  BTW, I don’t know where I got my leaf stencil but I do love the added foliage it provides for my flowers!  

After adhering my main image to the stenciled background, I put several strips of foam tape onto the back of the big flower and arranged it over the others.  I love that that particular flower was complete so that it could be the star of the show!  

A friend recently gifted me with the wonderful new sentiments and die from The Ton called Easy Expressions; I love the double font styles in this set and especially the little pop of black it provides against my floral background!  

I think this may be one of my favorite designs by Alex; those dainty little flowers are so sweet and the petals on all three blooms are perfect for coloring!  Now, onto the details of the blog hop and Giveaway:
To celebrate this release, Alex is giving away 7 $10 gift certificates.
Please leave a comment on each of the participating designers’ blogs/IG accounts in this blog hop by 05/22/2020 for a chance to win.
Winners will be chosen at random from the comments left on any of the blogs/IG accounts listed below and will be announced on Alex’s blog on 05/23/2020.    Please join us in the celebration and increase your chances of winning by taking a peek at the other creations made by the team!   Alex Syberia
Amber Rain Davis
Hannelie Bester
Nora Niskanen
Ilda Dias
Natasha Vacca
LauraJane
Jenny Colacicco
Yasmin Diaz
Tina Wilstrup
Rebecca Rapanaro
TaeEun Yoo
Jyoti Adhikari
Colleen Balija
Sandhya Iyer
Deborah
Nicoletta Porcu
Sharon White
Elena Cazares
Bonnie Crane
Melissa Goodman

 

 

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Gone To The Dogs!

Yes, I’ve abandoned the flowers for a time and have gone to the dogs using a stamp set called Dog Kisses from Stampendous!  Just look at those sweet faces!  I’ve had this for some time but when I began binge-watching Stampendous’ youtube videos recently, I got really excited to get out many of my sets and be a CopyCat!  If there’s anything you want to know about stamping, watercolor, heat-embossing, mixed media and many other card-making techniques you’ll find it there!  This is the first card I made yesterday after following one of Fran’s (Owner and Chief Artistic Officer of Stampendous!) awesome videos!  

 

One of the things that Fran does before starting to stamp and paint is to tape off the edges of her card stock.  I used a little cutting board I bought just for this reason!  So I got my two smallish panels taped and ready to stamp out a few of the little doggo’s and my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors to paint.  I don’t own really good watercolor paints- yet!  I’ll be purchasing the Daniel Smith paints recommended by Fran.  

After stamping out the dogs and sentiment I used a black Posca pen to hand-draw a border around the panel.  

I painted a light layer of color first then added some darker details.  Fran shows exactly how to choose and mix colors, place the colors for shading and gives lots of helpful tips and information throughout the video!  

Here they are!  All painted up and ready for a card!  

A pretty floral patterned paper plus a couple layers of yellow and aqua to coordinate with my colorful background made this a quick and easy slimline card to fit into a regular business sized envelope!  

I love the purple painted background on this one and found the perfect paper to finish off my card!  The mustard layer behind the doggie panel was a piece of cardstock I’d unsuccessfully cut a cover die from and I thought it gave a little visual interest!  

I had so much fun creating those two cards that I wanted to do more, especially after watching a number of landscape/scene-building videos!  I pulled out two more sets which I’ve not used much but will now that I know better how to work with them!  The top set is called Scenic Meadow and is a cling set.  The lower set is Meadow’s Edge, is a clear set and also has coordinating dies!  I started by stamping the dogs, then added detail stamps from the two sets.  

I was a bit disappointed in myself for doing such a bad job with my painting! My paints didn’t move and blend the way I wanted and I forgot the rules of depth and lightness in regards to perspective.  Bah!!  Hence the ugly solid swaths of color on the trio of dogs panel!  But I did have the fun of peeling off the tape to reveal the nice crisp white borders and decided to just go ahead and make these panels into cards anyway!  I will keep watching the videos, keep practicing and get better!  

I think this card is pretty darn cute!  Isn’t that a fun sentiment for it?  (It’s Taylored Expressions Simple Strips!) Inside is a birthday greeting and any dog lover would get a kick out of it!  

Should I mention those…hand-drawn pines in the background?? NAH!!  Let’s just say “boo-boo” and leave it at that!  I love the trio of happy, smiling dogs and think that someone will like this card!!  

Last but not least, here’s the final card I made this morning!  I determined to combine the two Meadow sets and add a doggie to sweeten it up!  I did some stamping, then masking, used my Zigs for coloring along with my waterbrush and finally, added a sentiment from Gina Marie Designs.  I hope I’ve inspired you to head over to see all the goodies at Stampendous, then zip on over to Youtube to watch some very inspiring videos and  then get busy in your crafty place!  Thanks for visiting today!!  

Alex’s Almond Blossoms

Welcome back to my blog!  I’m featuring another one of the beautiful new images recently released by Alex Syberia Designs in the form of digital stamps!  If you haven’t ventured into that world yet you really should!  Not only are the images super affordable, but you have the option to manipulate and play with them to create a myriad of designs and layouts!  Once you’ve created a design you like, just print, color and go!  For today’s card I chose the trio of Almond Blossoms, printed it in a size to fit an A2 card and got busy!  

 I started coloring the flowers with Zig markers, then realized that I hadn’t printed on Bristol Smooth card stock which is my go-to for Zigs and water.  So I used my Prismacolor pencils to fill out the rest of the blossoms.  Next time I’ll leave a little more white space!  

How about those stamen?!   I made them by dotting Glossy Accents to the ends then sprinkled on black glitter!  I love how the light catches them!  I fussy-cut the blossoms then put them aside in order to create my background!  

On a panel of Bristol Smooth this time, I sponged a thick layer of Fossilized Amber, Scattered Straw and Lemonade oxide inks, then deepened the edges with a layer of Aged Mahogany and Worn Lipstick.  You can see my favorite script-y stamp which accents the side and of course, my lovely spatters of black!  I attached this panel to a white base card, put some foam tape under my blossoms and added that to the background!  Finally, one of the great sentiments from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips was the last touch!  Oh!  I can’t forget my pretty little gems which add a little sparkle!  I hope you like my card and I hope you’ll go on over to Alex’s Etsy shop to see which designs will spark your creativity!  Thanks for visiting!  

Clean Up Cards!

 I don’t know about you, but I have hundreds and hundreds of card photos stored in my computer and my typical habit is to edit them for blog posts or to post on social media then pop them over to my CopyCatCard file!  Once that’s done, I delete them from Camera Uploads but unfortunately, I often forget that step!  During this time of social distancing, I’ve been working on cleaning up my files and came across a number of cards that I never edited and so they were never used for a blog or Facebook post!  I thought I’d share them with you today!  You’ll see that I have quite a few cards made with some of Alex Syberia Designs like this one above!  I printed it onto Bristol Smooth card stock and then colored the blossom with my Zig markers.  After die-cutting the image into a circle, I mounted it to a white base card which I’d embossed with a lovely folder I have.  I think that script is so elegant, don’t you?  The sentiment is from Unity Stamps.  

Here’s another one of Alex’s designs called Roses Bouquet which I stamped onto Bristol Smooth and painted, again using Zig markers! I think the sentiment is from Taylored Expressions  Simple Strips set!  

This card features a stamp made by Crafty Individuals called Summer Poppy Meadow.  I have to admit that I didn’t check to see the actual dimensions of this stamp when I ordered it, assuming it was a full A2 size!  It was quite disappointing to see the actual size when it arrived but it’s still a beautiful image and easy to work with!  I paired it with a black and white striped panel of a store bought card I had in my stash!  

I made this card over a year ago (maybe two?) and I’ve kept it for myself instead of selling it!  The simple yet striking lotus blossom was drawn by Luisana Lowry for her collection of digital stamps she called Red Hibiscus Designs and I was honored to be asked to create cards for her!  I colored this blossom with Copic markers and paired it with a background I had in my stash.  A little gold cord and a few sequins are pretty details!  

How gorgeous is this moth?!  Another one of Luisana’s designs, it’s not something I would typically be interested in, but I loved coloring this!  My Copics collection was fairly new and quite limited at this point but with the excellent tutorials that Luisana has shared, I learned so much and just love how beautifully this came out!  The background was made with Hero Arts Everything Flower stamp and I think I colored directly on the stamp, misted with water then stamped it onto Bristol Smooth card stock.  A perfect pairing, if I do say so myself!  Oh!  That bold sentiment is from Stamplorations!  

I just love this card!  It’s a print I found on Pinterest and it came with the blue background so all I had to do was color the flowers!  I believe I used Prismacolor pencils on this because I had to print it onto regular weight card stock.  The addition of Glossy Accents on some of the blossoms give it a really nice touch!  Sentiment is Taylored Expressions Simple Strips!  

When Alex Syberia created her first line of digital stamps, she invited me to design cards to help promote the line and I was honored and happy to do so!  This image is called Spring Bouquet and you can find it here in her Etsy shop!  Because I printed this with an inkjet printer, the ink smudged a bit but I used the printer ink as my gray and just went with it!  

Here’s the same image in orange and yellow; I like the addition of the Tim Holtz Hello die popping out of it!  

Another colorful card using Spring Bouquet, again letting the printer ink be my gray for coloring.  

Alex rocked the flower frame with this digi called XOXO Floral!  What a glorious array of blossoms and leaves to frame the hand-lettered XOXO!  I used Prismacolor pencils for this card, die-cut it with Gina Marie Designs Stitched Rectangle die then mounted it onto a base card made with heavy patterned paper!  

My last card is a simpler design featuring a sweet little Stampendous set called Sunshine Daisy!  I colored it with Copics, die-cut it into an oval and adhered it to the dotted paper oval.  The embossed base card is perfect with it’s display of petals, right?!  The sentiment is from Butterfly Reflections, Ink set called Let’s Flamingle.  

Here’s the inside of the Daisies card with the rest of the sentiment!  

I leave you with this sympathy card done in restful colors of nature and Papertrey Ink’s Meadow Greensstamp set.  I heat embossed the ferns with clear powder then sponged oxide and distress inks over them for a resist look, one of my favorite simple techniques!  The sentiment is from an old Stampin Up set.  Thanks for coming with me on this little walk through my computer files!  

CopyCat Frenzy!

Hi there!  Today I’d like to share a series of cards I’ve made recently!  I was poking around in my  Instagram saved cards collection and came across THIS one made by Maura R.  It’s vivid colors and bold design struck me anew and so I decided it was time to live up to my CopyCat name and have a go at replicating it!  I found a flower sketch on Pinterest that was similar to Maura’s huge blossom and printed 4-5 copies out onto watercolor paper.  Pictured above is the first card I made using Altenew’s Watercolor Brush markers, a black Zig for the bold outlines and a black Posca pen for the finer details.  A spattering of black and white paint added the final detail before I added the Tim Holtz stickers, raised up off the panel.

I loved making my first card so much that I jumped right into a second one, this time a Slimline style and used a lot of purple and blue on the blossom.  I love how that orange background really makes the flower pop!  More Tim Holtz stickers finish the card with a meaningful sentiment.

Because a combination of orange and aqua really appeal to me, I made another card like my first one.

My fourth card features a jade green blossom with a deep red background; I love the unusual color of this flower and it’s yellow leaves!

Another blue and orange card!

 

 

 

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I decided to try my hand at drawing my own image~ someone really liked the sentiment on this one and bought my card! 

 

 

I drew this one too and sold it!

I created another slimline card and wrote out a quote about kindness by Mr. Rogers.  I loved making each and every one of these cards and hope you enjoyed seeing them!  Thanks for visiting!

Unity Stamps In This Together

As I write this blog post, it’s officially been about four weeks since Vermont’s Stay at Home order in the face of a global coronavirus pandemic.  What an unprecedented, unsettling and bizarre time this is and it’s impact affects us all.  Since I’ve quit working and have so much extra time to spend in my stamp room, I’ve made a concerted effort to mail out many cards to encourage my family and friends.  It’s a small thing but if one of my cards brings a smile and a moment of joy then goal accomplished!  A number of stamp companies have created special sets that feature nurses, doctors, essential workers and sentiments that express our gratitude and admiration for them.  Other stamp sets are filled with beautiful images and encouraging words, like this one from Unity Stamps called In This Together.  

The beauty of this set is that it’s a digital stamp which means after my purchase, the company sent me a file in an email which I then downloaded to my computer.  I printed out the images onto regular card stock and then colored and cut them out. I just bought a laser printer so that I can print the images onto heavier card stock and watercolor paper and can’t WAIT to create watercolor cards with this set!  

In the meantime I spent a very happy hour or so coloring this beautiful blossom with Prismacolor pencils, adding many layers of color!  I had a panel of watercolor paper upon which I’d tried out my new Tim Holtz Alterations Collection-Mixed Media 2 die.  Some of the pieces didn’t pop out but I didn’t mind the look.  I layered it over a panel of lavender card stock, mounted my fussy-cut blossom using foam tape and then adhered it all to a base card of white card stock.  The final touch was to sponge a little lavender ink around the sentiment which came with the set and attach it to the panel along with a few iridescent sequins.   

This is another card using In This Together; this time I printed out the panel with both the blossom and sentiment all together.  I colored the flower with Copic markers, adding many layers of many colors as I always do, then added an array of dots inspired by Alex Syberia!  See her gallery of “dotty” cards here!  

I felt my card needed just a little extra “something” so pulled out a small embossing folder and added this lovely raised detail to the bottom left and top right corners!  Perfect!  

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing these and will be inspired to use your stamps to create encouraging cards as well.  Thank you for visiting!