November - ProjectPea Blog Hop

Back for my second post for today. . . 
Scroll down if you are looking for the 
Southern Girls 100th Challenge Post.

Welcome to this month's ProjectPea Blog Hop!  

Each month the ProjectPea crew is challenged to create fun and creative projects that are sure to inspire you to look at your stamps sets with new eyes.

I thought these stamp sets and dies would be perfect to use for decorating candles.  These are 3" x 3" candles I bought from Michaels.  Once I got started, I had a hard time stopping.  In this process, I discovered you can heat emboss the tissue paper!  The embossing stands up to the heat gun when putting in onto the candle!!  Whole new worlds opened up to me!!

Stamped tissue paper 

Start with a piece of white tissue paper a little smaller than the candle.  In this case, I used 2.75" x 9".

Waiting for the heat gun!!

When I create a backgrounds stamp like these, I use my Fiskars Compact Stamp Press.
It helps me get the stamps on the block straight and then stamp straight!  Once you have the tissue paper stamped or colored, you'll need your heat gun to adhere the tissue to the candle.



Hold your tissue paper taut against the candle and move back and forth with the heat gun.  I always start in the middle of the paper with my heat gun and then move to the ends.  The candle melts a bit under the heat - that's what keeps your work on the candle.  It gets hot at times, so you have to watch your fingers!

Half of the candle is already on the candle; the other half is next to be heated!

Let's take a closer look at the specific projects. . . 

The left candle is a vanilla one and the one on the right is white.

I started with the candle on the left.  It's simply stamped using the Sweet Treats Christmas stamp set and Cherry Cobbler ink.  Then I  started to wonder about using embossing powder.  The candle on the right is heat embossed with Cherry Cobbler embossing powder.   The images are more defined on the embossed candle.

  

The Lost Without You stamp set gave me new ideas to try.  I stamped the shepherd and then embossed him with gold embossing powder.  I found if I used my Copics to color him on the back, the embossing powder didn't ruin my markers!!  

The side I colored on (the back)

Colored and shaded

The finished colored candle

This is the image embossed in gold

One of my shepherd candles uses gold embossing for the image and the sentiment background.  The colored candle has a brown sentiment background. Both candles look wonderful!






And then, I had one more idea!  I used the Layered Treat Labels stamp set and the Layered Treat Label Sugar Cuts Dies.  How simple is this?!?  I just made a sleeve from some corrugated cardboard and used score tape to attach gross grain ribbon and then popped out the tag.  It's embellished with a heart from the die set, 2 red rhinestones, and a little ribbon.  Bam - you're done and set with an adorable gift ready to give!   

Our Blog Hop is a fantastic opportunity for you to WIN a $15 gift certificate to spend on some SugarPea Designs of your own!

Please visit each of our design team members listed below and leave a comment on each blog for your chance to win!  Good luck and enjoy the inspiration! 

InLinkz.com

Sister Act - Challenge #67

This week's Sister Act challenge is sponsored by A Day for Daisies.  Coloring this image put me in seventh heaven!  She's called A Special Flower.

I had so much fun creating this card.  Once the coloring was done, I decided to use my Lil' Inkers Stitched Oval Mat dies to frame the sweet girl.  I loved how it looked, but the downside was framing her cut out the flowers - and then the experimentation and problem solving began, including feeding my current obsession with the inlaid technique.  All of the ovals are inlaid, and the flower and grass are glued on top. The PTI sentiment is heat embossed and popped out.




I used E50, 51, 53, 35 for her hair.

Her skin is E000, 00, 21, R11.





Coloring in general and when using Copics takes a lot of practice.  My journey has involved a willingness to "let-go" and allow myself to experiment as I improve my skills.  So I thought I'd use this post to show you some of my process.


I generally start by printing multiple images of different sizes on my paper.  This gives me permission and freedom to experiment.  (I had to let go of feeling like I was wasting paper!)  Two images I narrowed down as my "finalists" are in the cut out section of the paper.

After deciding which sized image I want to use for my card, I began playing.  As much as I feel confident with hair, it is still something I work at for contrast and highlights.  I started with the largest girl in the upper left.  This allows me to decide what's working and what's not for my card's image.

I decided to make a pink dress, but in the end, this one with R11 was too much like her skin color, so I nixed it.









 
Knowing I wanted to keep her dress light, I thought about a white dress and giving the bottom some folds and a more defined waist.  These three pictures show me playing with the idea of folds.  Using Cs made the dress more gray than I wanted, so I tried R000. . . loved the soft pink!

This girl didn't make the "cut", but gave me another chance to work on hair, the idea of a white dress using Cs for shading, the flowers, grass and shading around her with BGs.

I used G000, 20 & 24 for the grass and BG0000, 000 and 11 for the bg shading around her.  I wasn't thrilled with the color placement of the flowers on this one, so I went back up to the pink dress girl and tried a more deliberate visual triangle of colors.

The girl on the right in my last picture is where I practiced coloring the dress.  She also happened to be the one I experimented with the die cutting and fitting those pieces into the puzzle for the final layout.  She's on my desktop waiting to be used in a future card.

I know this was a long post, and if you hung in with me until the end, I hope one person is inspired to keep trying and be patient with yourself as you work through the process.
Whether it's coloring with Copics, another medium, or trying a particular style of card making (such as CAS), learning takes persistence, practice, and just the right amount of skill-stretch. Thinking like an artist means tackling one thing at a time and not comparing your work to others.  Since art is personal, our challenges are likely not the same.  I hope you enjoy your journey as much as I'm enjoying mine!

Challenges Entered:
Pink Elephant #260 - Summertime
Through the Craft Room Door - AG
Crafting from the Heart #28/ - AG
Party Time Tuesday July Challenge - AG
Fan-Tastic Tuesday #45 - AG
Inky Chicks #34 - Birthday
Creative Inspirations #275 - Here Comes Summer
Crafty Girls Challenge #23 - AG
Scribble and Scrap #23 /- AG
That Craft Place - AG
Little Miss Muffet #90/ - AG

Color Me Creative Challenge - Anything Goes!

It's an anything goes challenge at Color Me Creative (CMC).  No limits, no boundaries - a free and easy challenge - much like the Wryn Hanging Around digi from Tiddly Inks.  I'm using her as a B-day card for a friend who is one year shy of 60!

I'm not trained in art at all (not even an art class in elementary school).  I've taken a Copic class online, attended Copic Certification two summers ago. I've tried to relax and give myself permission to learn, practice and develop my skills. It's helped by concentrating on one thing at a time in my Copic coloring.  Hair has been my most recent focus.  I thought I had it down - until I came across this girl!  I am really happy with the end result because I was able to give her hair the movement I was going for.  Let me tell you that it took a while to get there!




Here's a close up of the final version.

But she started out looking like the girl to the right.   I didn't like the color and because there wasn't much variation in her hair color, the movement I was trying to achieve was missing.  (The photo looks better than she does IRL.)






Then, I got out my pencil and tried to 
think more strategically about light and shading and where the sun would reflect
on Wryn's hair.  After I put the pencil in, I got out my markers and just messed around.




I still wasn't happy, so at that point, I went to my favorite tutorial spot "Google - images" - and typed in the name of the digi and looked at what other people had done. This allowed me to really study ideas for Wryn's hair.  I found a card that Amy H. posted on her blog.  From her work, I used a new image to pencil in the shading I saw on Amy's card.





Then I got out my markers and tried again.  This time was a lot closer! Woo!  Some of the shading needed to be adjusted.  I was in the ballpark and gave it another try. . .   




 
. . .  and here she is!  So for those of you who are working on your coloring, hang in there - and keep practicing.  I actually love to play around like I did here.  It's so satisfying to have an idea in my mind and be able to get it on the page.  

I hope you will find an image to color and play along with us at Color Me Creative.  The anything goes challenge runs through August 30th - that's two weeks! Check out the DT inspiration and join us.  Our sponsor is MarkerPOP! 


Copics used:
Skin:  E11, 00, 000 & R20
Hair:  E37, 35, 31, & YR21
Shorts:  W5, 3, 1
Shirt:  Y02, 07, 26 & YR 04, 07

Challenges Entered:

Creative Fingers - anything goes

Crafting by Designs - anything goes

Cute Card Thursday - Button Up

Tiddly Inks Challenge Blog - Birthday 

DL Art Thankful Thursday - August challenge

613 Avenue Create - anything goes

7 Kids College Fund - anything goes

Make It Monday - anything goes