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).

Memorial Day Blog Hop & candy

I was recently contacted by Cards for Heroes asking me if I would participate in their Memorial Day blog hop. What better way to celebrate the lives of those who serve our country than to show our support?

Cards for Heroes is an organization that provides blank, hand-made greeting cards to soldiers serving overseas who want to show their family how much they care. They don't have access to Hallmark stores, so they can't go buy their cards.

WE can help! Make general cards for all occasions and send them on to Cards for Heroes. The cards will be passed on to our servicemen and lovingly used for special occasions. Check out their blog for more information.

Meanwhile, post a comment on today's blog post and you are up for dibs on this patriotic stamp set I designed for Our Craft Lounge "All About the USA". (I'll also throw in a handful of Copic Markers- Retail value $40!!).

Then go visit the next blog in the hop, Sandy Allnock, president of Cards for Heroes, to see more ideas for Cards and the next link in the hop, then be on the lookout for prizes along the way. For the full Bloghop list visit here.

I made this very simple, manly card for my son to fill out and take to our local recruiting office (which is a few blocks away) as a Memorial Day thank you. (I have a hard time adding embellishments, ribbon or rhinestones to a man-card, which is part of the reason why this card is so clean and simple).

My 5-year-old son loves digi camo, so this Military paper by Reminisce will be a winner for him. The flag comes from the print on the backside of the camo paper. My son likes going in and talking to the recruiter, looking at all the neat stuff, and has stated many times that he would love to be a pilot in the military.

I used G85 and E47 Copic markers to make the square of paper and the stars match the dark brown/green from the camo print. Gotta love the ability to match any color!

For those of you who noticed that this set is different than the things/style I usually draw, that's because I designed this clear stamp set on the computer using Adobe Illustrator, rather than hand-drawing something and scanning it in. This set is perfect for scrapbooking, 4th of July cards, or cards to support the troops as I made above.


As I think of all the sacrifices made by servicemen over the years I need to stop and say Thank You!

My father, grandfather, and on back were all in the military. Here is a photo I found of one of my ancestors, Major General Henry W. Halleck. He was the General-in-Chief of all the Union armies before Grant took over during the Civil War.

His face is so similar to my father, it's hard to look at him and not think of all the stories my dad would tell about boot camp and basic training. My father was a teenager during WWII, and entered the service during the Korean War but never went overseas. My grandfather was an electrician for the Navy building the ships during WWII up in the shipyards of NY. All the hours of toil and struggle that these fine men went through so that I could be born in peace and prosperity and enjoy my country.

In February I had a chance to stop and visit the USS Alabama, which was built in 1940. Touring through the ghost of a ship was a sobering experience for both me and my husband. Thinking of all those men, away from their families for months at a time, sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, always on alert from weather or enemies... It really helped me appreciate my freedom and peace here in my homeland. I thank every person who has served, does serve, or will serve in defending and upholding their country.

Please do your part this weekend. Make some cards, make some artwork, visit a memorial, or just tell a military person "Thanks!" Don't forget to appreciate their hard work and sacrifices. Have a great holiday weekend!

Keep checking next week for more Blog Prizes from the Copic designers. Don't forget to leave a comment!!

Blogsiversary Prize Week

Blogsiversary Already!!
On June 1st it will be my 1 year anniversary of blogging, and to celebrate, I get to offer all sorts of neat prizes this week.

For Today's prize opportunity head on over to our designer
Sherrie Siemens
blog for a chance at a cool Canadian Certification Giveaway.

Tomorrow I'll post a Memorial Day weekend blog giveaway in conjunction with Cards for Heroes.

Next week I'll have some other great prizes offered by the other members of our blog team, so keep looking for your chance to win something special.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share some photos from the Portland Certification class we held this week. This class was special because the entire warehouse staff was able to come up and get certified. The first photo is our very own Kris, who helps get everyone registered for Certification classes. The rest of the photos are happy attendees busy coloring and learning, along with a photo of me showing how to do shadows on a snowman.

Check back tomorrow for the great Memorial Day blog hop and prize! Have a great weekend

Check this out

Sharon Harnist, one of our fabulous designers just posted this neat coaster project on Ellen Hutson's Classroom. You make it with tumbled marble tiles and various inks. Check it out!

Any time you see a new or different way of using Copic products please share with us. We love seeing neat ideas that will inspire others. Don't forget about altered arts, calligraphy, illustration, or design- since there are lots of different people out there who use Copic Products.

If you haven't checked out the Copic Papercrafting Designers in a while I suggest you go and see what neat things they have been sharing:

Debbie
Michelle
Sharon
Sherrie
Sally Lynn

Also, a reminder if you are in Winnepeg, Manitoba and would like to get into the Copic Certification class on June 6th taught by Sherrie Siemens it is open to the public. Be looking tomorrow on Sherrie's blog for a special Canadian giveaway. We look forward to seeing you there!