Thinking Inking

Love You, Little Monster!

Welcome! Today I have a boy-card to share with you. This cute little focal image and its sentiment is from a Paper Smooches stamp set called Falling for You. 

I used a really limited palette of Copic Markers here. The B01 was for airbrushing the background, in conjunction with a Spellbinders Standard Circles Large die template that I used as a mask. I also masked the monster with some Judikins Eclipse paper.

Other tools that I used included a Spellbinders Pinking Circles Large, Grand Circles, Charmed I'm Sure, and Graduated Dots M-Bossabilities™. I rubbed a Versamagic Tea Leaves ink pad across the graduated dots to deepen the pattern. I used some twine to tie the sentiment on and mounted pieces with foam tape. That's it for my boy monster card! Thanks for visiting. :-}

Congrats, Paper Smooches Style!

.

Welcome! Today I am posting for my sweet and oh-so-talented friend Kim at Paper Smooches. Paper Smooches is showing off their CHA release during the month of January.  Thirty-seven designers are participating along with the PS DT, so there will be a ton for projects to inspire you this month.  Paper Smooches is best known for fun and whimsical hand-drawn stamps, but they are branching out to include dies and wood mount stamps as well.

 

My card uses NEW PS product that releases on February 1, 2013 at www.papersmoochesstamps.com along with many retail stores around the globe. Looking for more PS? You will find a new blog link (or two) to follow every day in January at the PS Blog. 

 

Paper Smooches is giving away $500. Worth of product!  Hidden on FIVE of the participating blogs is a prize package worth $100. each. The prize includes a variety of stamp sets, wood mounts and dies.  Comment on as many blogs as you can to increase your chances to be one of the five winners. (If you have questions about the giveaway, please contact Paper Smooches.)

 

Deadline is January 30 – winners will be announced on the PS Blog on January 31.

 

 

My card today showcases the Sports Car and Congrats 1 wood-mounted rubber stamps from Paper Smooches (available February 1). Even though I had a car stamp, it had that funky vibe that begged to be made into a girlfriend card and paper pieced! Paper is from a 6" x 6" Pebbles Sunny Side paper pad. I airbrushed the background with a cloud stencil that I hand cut, and with my Copic BG02 and BG23 markers and airbrush system. I used a Spellbinders A-2 Matting Basics A die template to cut, emboss, and mask for airbrushing. 

.

.

I used more paper from the same collection to tie the inside together with the outside. The sentiment is stamped in PTI's Raspberry Fizz ink. 

.

I'm not sure how well you can see it, but I stamped the car first on cardstock and colored the windshield, hub caps, and chrome with gray Copic markers before coating them with Ranger Glossy Accents. For the headlights and taillights, I used a glue pen and fine glitter. I re-stamped the car on patterned paper and trimmed it closely, cutting out the headlight and taillight holes as well as the chrome, then glued the patterned piece on top of the cardstock car. 

.

That's it for today's card--thanks for visiting, and don't forget to check out the Paper Smooches blog!

Honey, I'm Gnome!

WINNER of the Forest Whimsy set is #65, Crystal B:

Thank you for playing along, and good luck off of Kim's and Amy's blogs as well!

________________________

Okay, I couldn't resist. It was either "Honey, I'm Gnome!" or "I'll be Gnome for Christmas. . ." Yes, pretty bad, I know! Would you believe that I once bought a Gnomes book? I was taking a history of illustration class in college, and the Gnomes book had the most beautiful watercolor illustrations.

So, when my friend Kim Hughes asked if I'd like to play with her Paper Smooches Forest Whimsy set, I had to. It was my destiny (said in my best Darth Vadar voice).You may remember these images from a former stamp set called "Forest Friendzy."  It was sold by Cornish Heritage Farms and Illustrated by Kim Hughes.  Kim tweaked every image in the set and gave them a fresh new look!  They are now manufactured with the highest quality clear photopolymer on the market.  They stamp beautifully.  Kim is releasing a new stamp set from the former "Kim Hughes Collection" on the 15th of each month at the Paper Smooches web site.

I have a Forest Whimsy stamp set to give away to one lucky person!  You have until midnight EDT on Sunday, November 20 to leave a comment.  I will use the random number generator to choose a winner and post the winner's name on Monday, November 21st.



On to my card: I had so much fun coloring this little guy that I thought I'd take pictures as I went--hope you find them helpful! ;-)

Hat and skintones first: I colored the largest red area first knowing that if I messed up, it would likely be on the red. No problems this time, however! I'm using PTI Rustic Cream cardstock here. My light source is from the front left.

Those lovely cool blue trousers next, with some BV25 shadows. . .

Boot colors are on the bottom of the stack, and shirt colors are on the top. I was going for a chamois shirt.

Okay, confession time: I spent probably three times as long on the beard as on everything else put together! The only place that has any cool gray in it is the shadow side--the right. The rest is all warm gray, with a few highlights enhanced by colorless blender.

I added a bit of B000 around the outside of the gnome and a series of E40's to color the stump. The grass is NOT part of the stamp set. I used my Copic Black 0.5 Multiliner SP to draw the grass and then colored it with YG61 and YG63. 

Want more chances to win a Forest Whimsy set? Then please visit Kim's and Amy's blogs and leave a comment there as well! Thanks for stopping by.

CPS 205: Fourth Anniversary Post!

Happy Fourth Anniversary to CPS! If any of you are not familiar with Card Positioning Systems, it is a fabulous sketch site that every week posts a new card sketch along with gorgeous eye candy. I had the privilege of being a CPS girl for a couple of years, so I was happy to play along again when Tami Mayberry mentioned an anniversary post.

You'll want to check out the CPS site and this post in particular--CardMaker Magazine is a sponsor of the prize this week, a one-year subscription to CardMaker!

Supply List:

Stamps: Birthday Buddies by Paper Smooches

Patterned Papers: Salt Air Mini Deck by Cosmo Cricket

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Tangelo, Versamagic Turquoise Gem by Tsukineko; Chamomile Distress Ink by Papertrey Ink

Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Ocean Tides, and Melon Berry by Papertrey Ink

Accessories: Twill from www.twilltape.com, Vintage Button from Papertrey Ink

Copic Markers: YR01, YR02, Y32, Y28, BG32 with Copic Airbrush System

Dies: Spellbinders Large Labels and Standard Circles

Other: foam tape by X-Press It

The Copic markers that I used are shown here, along with Clear and Buttermilk Spica Glitter Pens. I used the BG32 to airbrush water around the fish while the Labels die was still in place as a mask.

On a personal note, my son and I are headed down to South Carolina to visit my parents for a few days, while my husband stays home to keep the home fires burning--literally! I will have a few posts over this coming week anyway, but mostly we're planning to enjoy family. Thanks for visiting today!

Paper Smooches Co-Hop

Have you heard?

Kim Hughes opened a stamp company on February 1st called Paper Smooches! On The first day of every month, she is releasing three new whimsical and fun clear stamp sets that she hand draws. I have always loved Kim's brand of whimsy, so I was really happy to hear that she had ventured back into stamp design!

Kim asked me to create a card using one of her February stamp sets.  I used the Birthday Buddies set on today's card.

I chose the little party bird image and colored him with the Copic markers shown below. Papers are from October Afternoon's Modern Homemaker 8" x 8" pad. Focal image is cut and embossed with a Spellbinders Classic Squares Large die template. 

That BV04 was used in the shadowed part of the bird's tail, and the marker that is blank on the end is an empty marker that I filled with equal parts of YR31 and o, for a pale buttery yellow. 

Paper Smooches Stamps offers high quality photopolymer clear stamps, shaped card templates, a design center and so much more. There will be a monthly challenge on the The Paper Smooches Blog; (free digi stamps are involved). Participants will be eligible to be a guest designer for the following month.

Here is a list of some of papercrafting's top designers who are also playing with Paper Smooches Stamps today:

Michele Boyer
Alli Miles
Lori Craig
Julie Campbell
Carole Burrage
Karolyn Loncon
Kim Kesti
Betsy Veldman
Maren Benedict
Debbie Olson 
Melissa Phillips
Carly Robertson
Julia Stainton
Becky Olsen
Teri Anderson 
Kyrssi Ng
Heidi Van Laar
Heather Pulvirenti
Laurie Schmidlin
Lisa Johnson
Lori Barnett
Jessica Witty
Asela Hopkins
Rae Barthel

Please help me welcome Paper Smooches Stamps!