I did an oopsie

Some of you may have gotten a sneakie peekie at a blog post I was preparing for over a week from now! Oh well, if you did, you know what the challenge is going to be way ahead of time. Boo for me, yay for you! ha ha
I laugh at myself.
I meant to press "post options" so I could post date the post... but instead, I hit "publish post". The deed was done. There was no retreiving it. So, I just deleted the guts of it... not sure how to delete the rest.
Anyway, that's why you see these two empty posts. Not sure how I got two of them either. I'm having a great day with computers... it all started this AM when my hubby left to work in town (he usually works from home) . Of course I waited til he was gone before I booted up, and lo and behold my mouse wouldnt work!! Every other day it works, but the minute he left to travel forty five minutes away, it stops working. Anyhow, he got me going by troubleshooting over the phone at lunch hour. He told me to yell at it... said that's what he does... ha ha
But that's the way it's been going for me today with machines... ah well, some days are diamond...

HHC41, Sparkle and Shine!

This week's challenge is hosted by our fab diva Nikki! She wants our projects to sparkle and shine. Fun! I did two cards but alas, the photo does not show the sparkle very well :-( though I shot them from many different angles and lighting conditions. Oh well, take it from me, they do sparkle and shine! ;-)
If you join in the challenge, link up a photo of your creation onto the High Hopes blog so that your name will be entered into the draw to win two free High Hopes Stamps!
I stamped Three Pane Christmas using Memento Tuxedo Black ink by Tsukeneko onto Manga Drawing Pad paper, and colored it using Copic markers. Sorry I don't have the color list for this one. Must have forgot to write them down.






I stamped Tom's Plea as well as Sm. Hat in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Manga Drawing Pad by Canson and colored him with Copics. Here is the list:

Ground: E33, C5, 7
Beak and legs: YR12, 24, 31, 68, E97
Floppy beak thingy: R05, 08, E97
Rest of his body: E50, 53, 42, 44
Tail feathers: B21, 24, 95, YG67, BG93, E35
Santa Hat: R27, 46, B12

I used lots of Acrylic Glitter Glaze on both cards, as well as Stickles and Diamond Dust for lots of glitter.



Thanks for looking today! God bless you!

Video Tutorial: Coloring Santa's Face

Well the response was wonderful for my first video tutorial, and so I have done another one for you. This time I demonstrate how I use Copic markers. I concentrate on how I do Caucasian skin tones, white hair, and a red Santa hat. I list the marker colors as I use them.
Now after I had finished the video and got ready to make the card, I saw a few areas that needed tweaking. I added a bit more grey in the white trim of the hat and blended it some more. I also added a small shadow to the left side of his nose with E11, and pumped up the red of his cheeks with more R20. To finish it off, I dotted white highlights on his cheeks and nose with a white gel pen.



I had stamped Santa Portrait in Memento Tuxedo Black by Tsukeneko onto Manga Drawing Pad paper by Canson. This is my personal favorite combo of ink and paper for stamping and coloring with Copic markers.
Circles were cut with Spellbinders large circle templates. I sponged Tea Dye Distress ink onto the edges while it was still in the die. The snowflakes are actually buttons that I altered to use on the card. They sparkle irl!
This image is also popular to use on Christmas ornaments as well as cards. I would like to make an ornament sometime! I think that would be cool if I could think of a way to have the ornament on a card that you could remove to use on a tree! If I could figure out how that is! lol



Inge shared the "ho ho ho" paper with me last year, thanks Inge, waving!!
I hope the video was helpful.
Thanks for looking!
It is my prayer that you would know the peace of God today! Many blessings!

HHC40; Christmas in July!

Now I am all for today's challenge at the High Hopes blog, hosted by our fab Diva Kim, because I LOVE the celebration of Christmas!! Anytime of the day or year! Kim is going to give us a jump start on making our Christmas cards - thanks Kimmie! Waving!! If you check out her creation for this challenge, you will see that it displays the stamps that are up for grabs in the weekly blog candy giveaway! To enter the contest, simply make a Christmas project, and link up a photo of your creation to the comment section on the High Hopes Blog under this week's challenge. Why not join in? You could have a chance to be a winner!

I colored "Santa in Chimney" (one of the new releases) using the following Copic markers:

Santa's red suit: R29, 35, 59, 89, Belt and buckle: C4, 7, Y28 White fluff: B41, C4
Face: E00, 01, B41, R20 White gel pen to give a little highlight on his cheeks!
Beard: E30, 40, 41, 42, 74
Chimney: E15, 43, 55, W1, N5
Sack: G12, 24, 28, YR21

I sponged on "Summer Sky" by Memento while it was still in the scalloped die, and added a bit of B000 and B00 in the background and on the snow as well. And I used the colorless blender to blend out the blue of the sky and fade it to white.
The saying is computer generated. I just thought it was a funny thought, that Santa would need a touch of magic to get down the chimney in the shape he's in!! I need some of that magic myself, to fit into my jeans from last summer! LOL

Here's your close up:



Of course I could not resist doing another one. This time I colored "Nutcracker" using watercolor paints, namely Twinkling H20's. Too bad they were discontinued :-( They are such a great product! If you wish to see how I watercolor a stamped image, check out my You Tube video tutorial in the post below this one.
Thanks for the tree charm Lacey, ...waving!! (as well as a ton of other charms I might add!)
I wanted to really distress the dp so I crinkled it, scraped the edges with my ruler, sponged on Tea Dye ink along the outside edge, and swiped it across the surface, also with Tea Dye Distress Ink. I also used that ink to sponge some background color onto the main image oval while it was still in the Spellbinders die too.



Here is your close-up:



Thanks for visiting today! God bless you, He loves you!

WINNERS ANNOUNCED! PLUS! VIDEO TUTORIAL DEMO!

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

11
17
323
198
513
510
492
Timestamp: 2009-07-16 03:45:42 UTC

I printed and numbered all my followers as they appeared on the list of followers on my sidebar. I counted the last person on the last page as number "1" and the first person on the first page as number "573". This makes the winners as follows:
Drum roll please, ....

Grand Prize: littlepoppits
Second Prize: coralz
Third Prize: Pipparminttu
Fourth Prize: Donalda
Fifth Prize: Karina
Sixth Prize: Pamjoy
and finally,
Seventh Prize: Lila Castro

CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners!!! You have until midnight EST on Saturday July 18th to contact me with your full name and mailing address. Find my e-mail address on my profile page.
Thank you for playing everyone!! Sorry if you didn't win, but I would love to do other blog contests! It was very fun to play Santa Claus for awhile, and I only wish I could have had more winners, as I hate leaving anyone out. Perhaps next time you will be the lucky one!
A special thank you to everyone who entered, the response was overwhelming! And for leaving such SWEET, KIND comments, that lifted me up! What a great bunch of people, you bloggers are! Hugz all around!!!

Now on to new business...
I have created a video to demonstrate how I watercolor a stamped image! I am quite excited and hope it is the first of many to come, depending on the response it gets. So let me know how it turned out for you, and if you would appreciate more videos! I finally got tekkie enough to do them! lol (with loads of help from Mike of course ;-) )

EDITED TO ADD: I forgot to tell you the important ingredients to watercoloring a stamped image!! I have tried out a handful of water color papers to see which is best to stamp on, and found that THE best, BY FAR, is by Canson and comes in a pad at Michael's or other fine art supply stores. It is called 140 lb. Cold Press, Montval, by Canson. And the ink of choice is Versafine Onyx Black. You can't use Tuxedo Black by Memento, as it is not waterproof, so the ink will run with water. You can use Stayzon, however, you have to practically get an elephant to stand on your stamp to get a good impression; Stayzon doesn't like water color paper!



In case you have trouble seeing this video in Blogger, I am linking you up to where it is on You Tube:



I have never made or uploaded a video demo before, so I would appreciate the feedback. IF you can spare a minute, please let me know:
1) Did you have any trouble viewing the Blogger video or the You Tube video?
2) Which video is better quality (if you can view both)
3) Do you prefer to see/hear a video such as this, or would you rather I keep making tutorials with still pictures, as I have done in the past?

The dog image "Watson" is from the brand new release at High Hopes, and the sentiment stamp, which is older can be found here. The rest of the sentiment, which I am putting on the inside, says, "your birthday!"
I doodled the string that comes down from the Martha Stewart punched balloon, and attaches to his tail. I used Stickles on the party hat and Diamond Dust glitter (crushed glass) on the balloon for sparkle. And now here is the card I made using Watson the dog, which you watched me paint in the video demo:



And here is a close up of Watson for you:



Thanks for visiting, thanks for your valuable feedback, and congratulations to the winners of my blog candy!

BLOG CANDY EXTRAVAGANZA!!! 7 WNNERS WILL BE PICKED!!! PLUS SNEAK PEEKS!!!!

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN BELOW THIS POST FOR NEWER POSTS!! THANKS!! XO

Tina and Bethany of High Hopes Stamps have donated a ton of rubber goodness for me to share with you!! They are most kind and generous in the stamping community! I have been collecting tools and embellishments throughout the year to share with you as well and have added them to what they donated to make the prizes fat and yummy!!!
GRAND PRIZE:

List of items:
- one sheet of EZ mount (cling foam)!
- Spellbinders "Hearts" templates!
- small acrylic block!
- three High Hopes main images (Dress-up Danni, Crissy's Snuggle Bear, Peg Leg Pete) plus six more matching accessory stamps (all unmounted)!
- four boxes of chipboard embellishments by KC & Company!
- bag of assorted large Primas!
- Basic Grey 6x6 paper pad, "Offbeat"!
- assorted embellishments!

I added this so you could see Peg Leg Pete in full color:


and Crissy's Snuggle Bear:



SECOND PRIZE:

List of items:
- two High Hopes main images (Whitby Whale, and Treasure Chest) plus six matching accessory stamps (all unmounted)!
- Six Copic Ciao markers including a colorless blender and one Copic Original!
- 2 boxes of chipboard embellishments by KC & Company!
- buttons, layered flowers, and an assortment of other embellishments!

Here are the Treasure Chest and Whitby Whale in color:



THIRD AND FOURTH PRIZES:

I will also give away "Tidy Up Tillie" to a third place winner and "Mildred" to a fourth place winner!

Here's Tillie and Mildred in color:




HOW TO ENTER:
1. I would like to show my appreciation to all the people who have supported me so kindly over the past ten months, and so I am opening this blog candy contest to all my FOLLOWERS! That means, if you are not currently a follower, you must become one in order to be in the draw. Just start by clicking on the "Follow" icon to the right of this post, and go from there. It is not necessary to post a comment on this post, as I will be choosing the winner out of the list of followers!

2. You must post a link to this blog candy post on your blog. If you don't have a blog, let me know in a comment on this post and I'll enter your name, as long as you are signed up on my blog as a follower.

3. The contest starts today Wed. July 8 /09 and runs until Wed July 15 /09. I will number the list of my followers as they appear on the page by Blogger and use a Random Integer Generator to choose the numbers of the winners. I will post the winner's names here on my blog on Thursday July 16. The winners must contact me by Saturday July 18 with their mailing address in order to obtain their blog candy. If I don't hear from you by midnight EST on Saturday the 18th, I will choose an alternate name as the winner.

WAIT!! THERE'S MORE!!! (told you this is an EXTRAVAGANZA!!)
THREE MORE FOLLOWERS WILL WIN!!! I'M GIVING AWAY THESE HIGH HOPES STAMP SETS FROM THE NEW RELEASE!!!

Here are the three bonus prizes I will be giving away as well:

BONUS #1


BONUS #2

Here's the Hippo in full color:



BONUS #3


Just to be fair, if your name gets chosen for one prize, I will then remove your name for subsequent draws, just so that the wealth is spread around ;-). And yes, I will ship internationally!

And now, on to even more exciting news...SNEAK PEEKS!!!
High Hopes is having a new release of fabulous rubber goodness this coming Saturday! Official release time is 12:01 AM, Sat. July 11. And to give you your first sneak peek in color (other than the photos of the bonus prizes of course) I have made a card with one of the new images. I was inspired to draw this stamp based on a dear woman I know. Sadly, she had to say a final goodbye to her dog this spring. I am hoping she will feel touched by this stamp image I designed in her honor:



I colored the image with the following Copics:
Skin: E000, 00, 01 B41, R0, E11
Hair: E21, 35, 51, FBG2 on hair bow
Jeans: B12, 21, 32, 34, 99, R59 on buttons and heart patch
Shirt and Shoes: YG63, 67, Y28
Dog: YR21, E15, 17. 19
Collar: E49, R59
Colorless Blender
Stickles added later.



I'm happy to announce the return of "Mudzie" in this release! He, I think, was hibernating all winter. Either that, or out and about, looking for a mate ;-). At any rate, he is back, and is happy to make his appearance again! Here he is on a card I did for my niece:




Copic colors used:
Mudzie: E41, 42, 43, 47, 49, then R20 all over to rosey it up a bit, then E35 and 39 for a rich warm glow.
Hooves: E30, 31, and cool greys for shading
Apples and grass: R17, 20, 22, 35, 46, 59, YG03, 07, 17, 25, G99
Basket: Y13, YR00, E30, 31




And your last sneaky peeky, a card I did for my FIL for Father's Day. He LOVES to golf so this was the perfect card for him! He loved it too! (BTW, there is a girl golfer in the new release too!) Sentiment computer generated.



Copic colors used:
Skin: E000, 00, 04, R20
Shirt: BG01, 02, 05
Grass: G12, 94, YG07, 23, 17
Club, shoes: C0, 2, 4, B01, R89
Pants - too many to mention. Seriously. I wasn't happy with the color I originally put on the pants and so I erased as much as I could with the blender pen and re-colored them. I didn't like that shade either, so I erased and started over a third time. I actually lost count of how many tones of color these pants went through! LOL





Thanks for visiting today, and good luck in the contest!!

HHC39, Upsy Daisy!

The new release is UP at the High Hopes website! Here is the link to all the new releases! Eight pages in all!!
Today's challenge at High Hopes is hosted by our fab Diva Anna. She wants us to be inspired by daisies to make our card/project. Now I love daisies, so this was not hard for me at all. You can use daisy dp, daisy stamps, daisy Primas, draw your own daisies, or even just use daisy colors on your card! It is entirely up to you! If you check out her creation for this challenge, you will see that it displays two of the stamps that are up for grabs in the weekly blog candy giveaway on the High Hopes Blog! To enter the contest, simply join in the challenge and link up a photo of your creation to the comment section on the High Hopes Blog under this week's challenge. Why not join in? You could have a chance to be a winner!

I tried to make the front of the card look like a red barn door with white cross beams on the front. Don't know if I succeeded but I tried! lol The Primas are my daisy contribution today!
This card is going to my son Nik who is turning 28 tomorrow. Seems like yesterday he was a baby in my arms!
I stamped the brand spanking new release stamp American Cowthic with Tuxedo Black ink by Memento onto Manga Drawing Pad by Canson and colored with the following Copics:

Cow spots: C2,4,5,7, 10
Cow white areas: E50,53,11,01, RV00, R20, (hair on cow E15,17)
Pitchfork: W1, B000
Background: Y26, 28, B00, 12, W3, G85, BG10, BG93
Bell: Y28
Rope: YR21
Party hat: R27, FYG2, FBG2, Y35
And here's a closeup:



And here is a little bookmark I made to keep in my Bible. I love it! I surrounded my Book Worm with the new Daisy image and I love how it turned out (they are cut out and glued on with a glue pen)! When I was done the coloring and doodling, I used a clear Versamark Ink pad and covered the whole thing with it. I then used a clear embossing powder all over it and heat set, so it would be coated with a light film of plastic for protection.




Here are the colors I used on it:
Worm: YG21, 23, 25, 63 Tie: C10
Glasses: B34 Cheeks: Rv23
Book: Yr31, Rv17, 19, C4
Background: B21, B000
Daisies: B21, Y00, Yr12, Y35, YG21, G17, 14, 94


I wanted to let you know that I will be coloring all of High Hopes Stamps (eventually!) so that they all appear IN COLOR on the website. This is a monumental task, but it is also FUN, and so I am looking forward to it! I have colored six images from the new releases in the catalogue so far, and I'd like to show you a couple more they will soon add. I think colored images might sell better, because you can see the way they could look, and they just look more inviting somehow. What do you think?




Thanks for coming by today and for all your support, esp lately on my blog candy contest! You bloggers ROCK!!!!!!

HHC38 Lots and Lots of Polka Dots!

Today's challenge at High Hopes is hosted by yours truly, MEEEEEeeeee! Am I excited? Nah... well, just a little, tee-hee! All I want you to do this week, is to go nuts with polka dots. I LOVE polka dots. So get dotty and use as many as you want on your card/project! This first card displays Willard Weather Ant, which is one of the stamps that are up for grabs in the weekly blog candy giveaway on the High Hopes Blog! To enter the contest, simply join in the challenge and link up a photo of your creation to the comment section on the High Hopes Blog under this week's challenge. Why not join in? You could have a chance to be a winner!
The second stamp to be given away is called Sitting Bee. I didn't get a chance to make a card with him this week, but here is a sample of a card I made a few weeks ago with him on it.

I colored Willard's body using Copic colors:
YR21, R59 (hands and antenae)
E15, 17, 19
Boots and Umbrella: YG63, 67, YR02, RV42, B02, 12
Ground: Y28, E15
B000 on droplet of water

Here is a closeup of the coloring:




I couldn't help myself, I had to do another one (told you, I LOVE polka dots!!)! ;-) I was pleased to use the stamp in the HH catty that Tina named after me, Crissy's Snuggle Bear. After I drew her, I was like, this is me! This is me when I was a kid anyhow, always with a Teddy bear at bedtime, and loving my blankie!! So she had to carry my name. Sigh... oh those happy memories of bedtime, giggling, and being tucked under the covers by Mom and Dad... ok, now I'm getting really sappy on ya! ha ha, sorry!

Here are the Copic colors I used on "Crissy":
Flesh: E000, 00, 01, 11, R83
Hair: YR21, E51, 33
PJ's: RV42, R22, E04, BV23, plus a Signo gel pen (white) for the polka dots
Blanket: BG15, 18
Bear: E33, 35, 37, 49, R59, YR21
Ground: Y28, BV23



And here is your closeup:



Very busy getting ready for High Hopes' new release this month, so I didn't get a chance to do any Copic tips this week. Stay tuned for the upcoming sneak peeks! They will be coming soon!
Take care and God bless!