Rumors and Prizes

I want to thank everyone who has participated in the giveaways this week. You still have through tonite to enter my giveaway by making a post here.

If you want a chance to come to the Salt Lake City Certification on June 11th you can send an e-mail to ilikemarkers@gmail.com (the odds of winning are pretty good right now, so don't hesitate). Click here for more details.

Rumors:
You may have heard rumors on the internet this Spring about new colors coming from Copic.

The rumors are true and confirmed!!
Copic is coming out with 12 new colors, available in Sketch and Various ink only. This will bring the total to a whopping 334 colors of markers available. Wow! That's a lot of choices.

They are NOT available for purchase...(yet)...just keep reading...

The fabulous new colors are:
COPIC Sketch BV0000 Pale Thistle
COPIC Sketch V0000 Rose Quartz
COPIC Sketch RV0000 Evening Primrose
COPIC Sketch R0000 Pink Beryl
COPIC Sketch YR0000 Pale Chiffon
COPIC Sketch Y0000 Yellow Fluorite
COPIC Sketch YG0000 Lily White
COPIC Sketch G0000 Crystal Opal
COPIC Sketch BG0000 Snow Green
COPIC Sketch B0000 Pale Celestine
COPIC Sketch C00 Cool Gray 00
COPIC Sketch W00 Warm Gray 00

Then the question comes, What do I do with all those super pale colors?

Well, I know that our design team will love the pale yellow (Y0000) and pale blue (B0000) , as they have been making their own markers in these colors right now. The color "Snow Green" is perfect for...well...snow. That pale red is going to be great for subtle, rosy cheeks, and I would use YR0000 for a pale skin color. Once I get my hands on these I'll try to color something and use these soft colors (see, I can't even play with them yet!! my patience is wearing thin...)

So when will they be available??!!!
Soon. I know you want them NOW. It is very hard to know exactly when the boat is coming over from Japan, but the first few may arrive in time for an Anime Expo sneak peek (July 2-5, Los Angeles Convention Center) Keep your fingers crossed! If you are coming to Summer CHA from July 28-30 you can see them in our booth (not the Supershow). It may be a while before these are in your retail stores or online though. Just be patient and keep looking for them.

Meanwhile, check out the giveaway from Monday and I'll have more ideas tomorrow.

Happy 1 Year of Blogging!

Wow, a whole year I have been at this, and my way to finish up this week of celebrations is with more prizes.

See this assortment above? It includes 1 each of all the new Spica Glitter Pen colors, 5 assorted Ciao Markers, and 6 multiliners, all in a sleek, black wallet. Retail value of $80!

I'm giving away 5 of these sets.

Leave a comment on this post between now and 12am Thursday morning for your chance to be entered.

Tell me what the most valuable thing you have learned from my blog this year has been, or what you want to learn, any other suggestions for Copic (colors, new products, etc), or just say hello. It's that easy!

Good Luck!

Come back later today for more prize opportunities and updates on other winners.

Rules:
• US & Canada only, sorry!
• One entry per person
• Must include a way for me to contact you (e-mail address or blog link)
• After I announce the winner you have one week to contact me or your prize is void and will be passed on to a runner-up.
• If you can't leave a comment you need to set up a Blogger profile. This is super easy and allows you to vote on other blog prizes.

More Blogsiversary Updates

I want to thank everyone who has left comments this week on our designer's blog posts. There is a lot of enthusiasm out there for Copic markers and learning how to use them... Thank You!

There is still time to leave comments to win my prize for today, but I want to give a big congrats to all the other fabulous winners this weekend.

The Winner for Sharon's giveaway is Ann Clack.

The Winner for Michelle's giveaway is Tessa Wise.

You can still leave comments on Debbie's giveaway through Midnight tonite.

Last, I have one Big Giveaway to finish off my Blogsiversary Week:

For those of you near Salt Lake City, UT
I am giving away 2 free seats in the class on June 11th

To enter simply e-mail Marianne (ilikemarkers@gmail.com) and put SALT LAKE CLASS CONTEST in the title. Give us your best paragraph about the papercrafting things you enjoy and are passionate about and why you should win.
Please include your NAME, E-MAIL,ADDRESS,PHONE NUMBER
(Serious entries only please)

Winner will be chosen Friday, 12am. and I will contact you with more information.

If you live near Salt Lake I will be doing Make-and-Takes all day on Friday and Saturday in the SLC area. HEre are the places I will be, so come and visit if you can!

Friday, June 12 – make and takes with OCL

2:30-4:30 Heartfelt Creations
9318 S. 700 E.
Sandy, UT

5:30-7:30 Country Loft
288 E Main
Lehi, UT

Saturday, June 13 – make and takes with OCL

10:00-11:30 Heartland Paper
616 West 2600 South
Bountiful, UT

1:00-3:30 Paper Creations
1140 E. Brickyard Road
Salt Lake City, UT

5:00-7:00 Heartland Paper
5794 South Redwood Road
Taylorsville, UT

Prizes this weekend

Want another chance at cool prizes?
I'm still celebrating my Blogsiversary so be on the lookout for cool blog prizes all weekend long.

YOu still have a chance to win the marker set on Sharon Harnist's site.

Hop on over there, then for the new prize today check out Michelle Wooderson for a really neat giveaway! You'll have to go see what it is, I won't spill the beans.

Saturday, head over to Debbie Olson for another chance to win something cool.

Then Monday you can come back here and see what neat things I have in store for you. Trust Me...You don't want to miss this :)

Congratulations to the winner from Sally Lynn's prize drawing of a set of Glitter pens...
Michaela

Also, thank you for all the fun comments on so many blogs about the cute Kona the Turtle set I drew for Joy and Daisy over at eP. I must say, I absolutely LOVE being able to share my little doodles with everyone and bring smiles to faces of people I don't know.

Here is a closeup of a second version of yesterday's image of Kona. I wanted this one to look wet, so I took a fine toothpick and very lightly added tiny specks of white over my image to look like shiny light reflecting off my turtle.

Have a rockin' weekend! See you monday :)

Oh, I forgot to mention, If you are in the Dallas, TX area this weekend and visiting the Anime show, A-Kon, go and check out the Copic Booth. There will be coloring workshops by Ryan Weber, a fabulous charicaturist. So check it out and buy some markers!

Big Wave & Prizes

We have a lot of stuff to cover today, so let's start with winners!!

Winnipeg Certification Giveaway Winners
Congrats to our two lucky winners!!!

Linda Shewchuck
and
Gail Neduzak

Thank you both for your fabulous e-mails and we know you will both have fun learning more about Copics. You get to enjoy a great class taught by Sherrie Siemens in just a couple weeks.
Ready for the next giveaway in my week of Prizes? Check out Sharon Harnist today for a chance to win something really neat. I won't spoil what you win, but it's worth stopping by. You have until this evening to enter to win on Sally Lynn's site as well.

Certification Update
Salt Lake City, UT on June 11th taught by Marianne is now open to the public. As is the Belmont, NH class tauught by Sally Lynn on June 14th. Here is a rundown of the status on all upcoming classes:

Smithville, OH class on May 31st taught by Sally Lynn is Full.
Winnipeg, Manitoba class on June 6th taught by Sherrie Siemens is open to the public.
Salt Lake City, UT class on June 11th taught by Marianne is open to the public.
Belmont, NH class on June 14th taught by Sally Lynn MacDonald is open to the public.
Durham, NC class on June 28th taught by Sally Lynn is open to Stores, Teachers, & Design Team members only.
Orlando, FL class on July 27th taught by Marianne is open to Stores, Teachers, & Design Team members only.

Get on the mailing list for upcoming Summer classes (sign up on the sidebar of my blog):
Vancouver, BC August 15th taught by Sherrie.
Eau Claire, WI August 16th taught by Sally Lynn
San Diego, CA August 17th taught by Marianne
Calgary August 22nd & Edmonton August 29th taught by Sherrie.
Coconut Creek, FL August 30th taught by Sally Lynn
Minneapolis, MN (Date TBA, Mid Sept.) taught by Marianne

Now, for a quick Summer tutorial that may help you make some fun backgrounds for your projects. You may have seen this before, but I figured my project today is perfect for the upcoming Summer Days. On a budget? You can still make a cute card with only white paper, stamps, and markers with this technique.

Wide Water Background
This is a simple squiggle made with a wide marker. Just hold the chisel firmly against your paper at an angle that is easy for you to hold. Make a gentle swatch with a bit of a wave in it. Overlap these and you have a great water background.

You can do this with any marker, but the Wide marker will cover the largest area. I used B32 for this project.

For my very quick final project the only paper I used is plain white, Neenah Classic Crest Solar White. I made the background waves using the technique I just showed you.

Work on a larger paper than you need and trim the uneven marker edges off, or color over the edge of the paper on all sides to make sure you don't get funny blobs where you first hold the marker to the paper.

Now my background paper looks like designer paper with waves on it. I trimmed along the top wave to mimic the water.

The orange paper on my final image was made with a wide YR04 marker so it would match the turtle's shorts. I drew the squiggle, trimmed it down, then added the extra line down the midle with a Multiliner. Other colors I used: B32, B34, YR04, YR07, YR09, G12, G14, G28, YG21, YG23

My final image is from the new, exclusive stamp set I drew for my friends over at eP called Hangin’ Loose with Kona. The character was born on a napkin at Winter CHA when my friend Daisy at eclectic Paperie mentioned that they wanted a surfing turtle. Now here he is, fresh from his napkin and he's wishing Joy Kennedy from eP and Our Craft Lounge a Happy Birthday!

Keep checking this week for more prize opportunities, and head over to Joy's blog to wish her a Happy Birthday

New Spica Colors & Coloring Vampire Skin

Yeah! It's been a long process, but finally we have our new atyou Spica glitter pens in stock. If you love the bold, bright original colors then you'll love the new set of pastels and secondary colors. (Later this week you may even get a chance to win them...hint, hint..)

The colors and their Copic equivalents are:
Pitch Black - 100
Blossom - (RV22)
Garnet - R39
Lipstick - R29
Baby Blue- B21
Mint Green - G82
Buttermilk - Y21
Chocolate - (E58)
Sand - E33
Peach - E01
Lilac - BV00

These are available NOW at a store near you.

The atyou Spica pens are prefect for adding a subtle shimmer to any of your papercrafting projects. These pens are acid free, archival, and pigment based. They last twice as long as any other glittery pen and are not a gel pen. They're really hard to see in a picture, so you have to see them in person to understand how they work the best.

Coloring Vampire Skin
With the popularity of Vampires these days I realized that in my original Skin Color Posts I forgot Vampires.

The perfect pale, sallow, skin color with sparkle combination I found is

E000 + E70 + E01 + Clear Spica

(Other colors I used: B91, B93, B95, BV11, R35, R39, R89, C2, E31, E34, E37, E59, Y000)

Scribble over your main skin surface lightly with the Clear Spica. You don't need too much. Color the whole area in with your pale E000, this will evenly spread around the glitter, and they you can add your unhealthy shadows with the E70 and touch up the darkest skin areas with E01.

Skin colors are hard to scan or photograph, but on my monitor these colors look pretty accurate, though the E70 is more purple in real life (adding to the sleepless look). On paper they are a dead ringer for a vampire out in the sun where you can see their skin sparkle :) If you enlarge this picture and look really closely you might be able to see the flecks of light where the glass flakes from the spica pen is catching the light. I added a few hints of the new Peach Spica pen to the shadows just to deepen them up a bit.

Artwork is some I drew a while ago for another project, photocopied onto color laser copier paper.

Big Copic Prize Week
The winners for the Winnepeg Certification giveaway from Sherrie's blog will be announced tomorrow. Thank you to all who participated! That will be a fun class and the two lucky winners will have a neat opportunity to learn from Sherrie.

Look back tomorrow on Sharon's blog for another cool prize opportunity, and you can still enter to win a prize on Sally Lynn's blog, so keep looking for your chances to win all week.

Blogsiversary Prizes & Coloring on Fabric

I'm back from a great, busy weekend~I want to thank everyone who left comments on my Memorial Day / Blogsiversary Prize giveaway.

The winner for my prize was chosen from Random.org
#297 is Dawn

Congratulations Dawn! Her comment was:

OMG love the camo card. I have been on my son'g ship and it is a real humbling experience. Wish everyone gets to visit a ship at least once in their lifetime.

Dawn, I know you will get a lot of good use out of this set for your cardmaking and scrapbooking. Enjoy those stamps and markers!

Now, on to more prizes!

For today's prize opportunity you need to check out our next design team member, Sally Lynn MacDonald and see what cool prize she's giving away. Leave a comment for your chance to win, then check back for the next blog prize opportunities all week long.

Meanwhile, I have a few questions that have come up recently about using Copic Markers on Fabric. I may have posted something similar in the past, but I want to bring up these points again since they seem to be coming up right now:

Copic On Fabric
People ask me frequently if you can use Copic markers on fabric. The answer is YES! They look great on fabric. A few things to consider:

1. Red inks will bleed when washed, so either use colors besides red (or brown since it has red in it) or only work on projects that won't be washed.

2. No need to heat-set, the markers are permanent

3. The markers will bleed out as you color with them since fabric is so absorbent. To avoid this just heat up the fabric before coloring and the alcohol will evaporate quicker, causing less bleed.

4. For a fine line you can use Copic Multiliners, however, those do need to be heat-set.

5. Don't airbrush on fabrics, since the dye doesn't soak down into the fibers enough.

6. ALWAYS work with scratch paper under your fabric.

When Stamping on Fabric to be colored with Copics:
Try using Brilliance Ink, Heat-set for best results. Sherrie Siemens has done many projects on fabric with Copic markers, so check out her blog for more examples.

Otherwise, enjoy playing with Copics on fabric! I have a couple pairs of jeans I've drawn on and I love how the markers look.The photo above is from a scrap of white cloth that dyed with Copic inks, then I went in with the colorless blender and added drops and swirls in for texture. I made this about 4 years ago, so I don't know what colors I used, regular cotton fabric (though any fabric works).