The great copic debate

I want to take a moment and talk about Copics...or rather my lack thereof. I own two Copic markers, a colorless blender and then a pink marker (Lipstick Pink I believe) in the Sketch style. I bought them on sale and still couldn't believe I was spending that much for just two markers. I played around with them a bit and I will admit that they are pretty awesome. I can completely understand the appeal of these markers. The color is clean, streak free and saturated. Even with all that, I still cannot bring myself to buy more. I did some major searching and price comparisons after receiving a very nice gift card for Christmas. While the Sketch markers had the most flexibility, at $4+ a marker, they were well beyond what I wanted to pay for a decent color selection. I looked at the lower price option of getting Ciao markers. I found these beauties as cheap as $2.96 a marker. That doesn't sound bad until you start doing the math. To get a decent (at least 36 colors) selection, I'm still paying over $100 ($106.65, to be exact from MerriArtist.com). Affordable with my Christmas money, but what about when I decide I want more colors?

Don't get me wrong, the little I have played with Copics makes me seriously covet a complete set. I could completely wipe out my Christmas money buying just Copics, but it's rare that I have this sort of money at my disposal and I want to get as much bang for my buck as possible, including some stamps I've been coveting far longer than those markers. So I dug through my stash of art supplies for some watercolor pencils and some standard colored pencils. Courtesy of an artist mother, I can draw and paint, I just don't enjoy it. At least not from scratch. Stamping allows me to skip the bits I don't like and go straight to the bits that I do. Which means I have an appreciation good art supplies.

Part of my collection of art supplies included a moderately okay set of watercolor pencils. Watercolor was always the most forgiving of the art mediums I tried growing up, and the pencils are a perfect match for stamping. I simply trace out the image areas with the color of choice and apply water with a brush to pull the color into the center of the area. Voila, instant shading. Coloring in the area lightly and tracing the edges more heavily gives a more intense color. It mostly just takes a bit of practice to learn how to get the results you want.

Take a look here. The image to the far left is done in colored pencils, the image in the center is watercolor and the image to the right is the watercolor before the water was added.



After several hours of playing with my watercolor pencils I came to the conclusion that my moderately okay set of pencils was limited on color selection and needed an upgrade to at least a very good set. Fortunately, Hobby Lobby carries what I consider to be Very Nice water color pencils in open stock. Even better, they were 30% off this week. I invested in a few in the color range I wanted to experiment with and was very pleased. I will be adding to my collection in the near future.



The image to the left is the same as before. The image to the right is also the same, only this time with water applied. The image in the middle is with the new watercolor pencils. I'm really pleased with the color options the new pencils provide. The standard colored pencils used on the image to the left is a super cheap set of Crayola brand pencils. Functional until I can invest in a MUCH better set, most likely a full on tin of soft lead Prismacolors.

A selection of my pencil play -



On the bundled up cutie in the top, the left is colored pencil, the right is watercolor. I purposely went with pale shades on the watercolor one as I was experimenting. Overall, I'm very pleased with the results. The girls are both Elisabeth Bell from Funky Kits in Scottland, while the boot and daisies are Alessa Baker from Impression Obsession.

So let's talk money. I've already mentioned the price per marker up at the top. If you're just starting out and aren't concerned about the color options available, hit the school supplies section of your local discount store (Wal-Mart or Target) and grab a set of Crayola or Kodak colored pencils. I have both and can attest to them being excellent for play and even full fledged card making. I've seen sets from RoseArt in 72 colors, although it's more likely that you'll find a sets of 24. Personally, I'd skip over RoseArts. I'm not a big fan as the quality overall isn't that good. Price wise, expect to pay under $10 (to be honest, if you pay more than $6 or so, I'd be surprised). Once you decide you like the results you're getting, you may want to upgrade to a high end set of pencils. My favorite is Prismacolor. With their latest release of colors they have 132 shades. You can find the whole shebang on Amazon for $110. If you do the math, you'll come up with a whopping 83 cents per pencil.

If you want to try watercolor pencils, expect to pay a little more. Hobby Lobby carried them on open stock (selection of 60 colors) for $1.49 a pencil. Watch for a good sale and you can pick them up like I did this week at $1.04 a pencil. So for the $12.50 I spend on watercolor pencils, I got 12. For that same $12.50 in Copic Ciao markers, I could have gotten 4, or in high end colored pencils, 15. On my limited budget and in this economy, it's pencils all the way. Try them. I think you'll like them.

Is this thing on?

Oh gosh. Talk about blog neglect! Or rather, let's not. Let's just say it's been one very busy season and leave it at that. I received lots of lovely things, some as gifts, others as a result of some excellent sales on eBay. Sadly, I've been too stinkin' busy to do a thing with them! Soon. Trust me. No, really. I'm serious. Okay, just don't go on my definition of "soon". Or on my card sending schedule (no heckling from the peanut gallery, Becks!). I have some lovely new stamps, courtesy of a nice place in the UK and equally nice place on the East Coast. So cards are in the making. I've even managed to find some of my favorite stamping tools and they're just waiting for me to put them to use. I've even got a review or two in the making as I got some fab new tools. 2009 will be a year full of blog posts or my name isn't Yosemite Sam! Okay, so it isn't, but there's lots of blog posts in me, I just know it!

Sketch Extravaganza - Prima Style

The LSS hosted a big sketch based crop. The participants got a new sketch every 2 hours. Shanel passed out a couple of sketches to each of us on the Design Team to work up before the event. I could use whatever I wanted and my instructions were to alter the sketches, but to make the sketch recognizable from the layout. One was a single page sketch, which I rarely do, with a single photo, which I'm fairly certain I've never done. Just one photo on a layout? Isn't that a crime of some sort? :) One photo quickly became three for me. I used some of the new yummy Prima YOUth papers. This is done with a combo of the 12x12 sheets, 6x6 pad and the matching flowers. The large flower is a Bazzill blossom, the rest are Prima. Brads are Bazzill as well. Title is American Crafts Thickers and BasicGrey Chipboard letters/numbers.

Click for a large view -



The other layout was double page, multi-photo. I actually liked the original layout so I stared intently at it for a few days before I decided how to make it work. One technique I've learned from various classes is that my layouts are more cohesive when my subjects face in towards the center of the layout. That being the case, altering the sketch was as easy as mirroring it. My large photo and title are on the right hand side. My second twist was to do a Halloween layout using Christmas papers. Yep, those are Prima's gorgeous new Christmas papers, Christmas Fancy. The pinks and greens were perfect for my photos. Linsey loved being a fairy for Halloween.I did a few other tweaks to the general sketch and then I blinged the heck out of the layout. The bling flourishes are pink Say It With Crystals, again from Prima. I fussed with this layout for a while, trying to really get it to work for me. I had half a dozen or so flowers on it and just couldn't get it to flow. It was only when I pulled them off to swap them out with a different set of flowers that I realized the glitter asterisks (American Crafts Thickers) that I was using as flower centers didn't need the flowers after all! They were the perfect accent to pull the bling in line with the colors and the subject.

The title is the same American Crafts Thickers, ribbon is from Hobby Lobby, washer I believe is Making Memories. It's been in my stash for a while. It says "Believe"

Again, click for a larger view -

Quick Cards for Christmas

I love making cards, although I rarely do these days. When Shanel (my LSS owner) asked if I could make her some Christmas cards for her Holiday Open House coming up this weekend, I said "sure!". She needed the cards by Sunday, and knowing my timeline, I figured I had about an hour (maybe 2) to work on them and have them ready to bring in the next day. Knowing my limitations, I promised six cards. I only took pictures of 5 because the last one looked lame and unfinished. We did a bit of work on it when I got to the scrapbook store, but I didn't take my camera.

I've been dying to see the new Creative Cafe papers first hand. I keep seeing them in various spots around the web. Seeing them up close and personal, they are every bit as pretty! The kraft background behind the florals make them look so elegant and really dresses up the cards. I tried to keep my supplies limited for these so people didn't feel like they had to buy a bunch of stuff to accomplish great things.

Papers, buttons, base cards and scalloped velvet ribbon are Creative Cafe. Trust me when I say this ribbon is seriously yum-o! It's a bit expensive at 75 cents for a 1/2 yard, but well worth it. I usually buy it in yard lengths so I have it on hand when I want it. The blue is probably my favorite color, but I love it in brown and black as well. I'm nearly out and need to stock up! All of the flowers are Bazzill Blossoms. Again, love these! I have packs of them in various sizes and colors. They mix, match and layer very well. Glitter letters and remaining embellishments are all American Crafts. The glitter "spots" on the buttons are the dots that go over the J and I letters for that font. I never peel the suckers off when I'm using those letters, so I end up with them as spares. They make great flower sparkles.

And now for the cards (click for a large view)-

Blog Neglect & New Stuff

I have shamefully neglected my blog. All I can say is that is has been a busy couple of weeks of Baby Showers, Consignment Sales, State Fairs and more Baby Showers. The DH's shift is about to explode in babies. I've got at least two more showers before the year is out.

In between all of that madness, I've been trying to squeeze in a bit of crafting. I've managed a layout, a mini-book and a cool dry erase board project. Mostly in just the last weekend. I picked up another mini book while I was dropping off my latest round of Design Team stuff at the LSS, so I should have blog fodder for weeks to come. Not to mention I haven't even blogged about last month's kit. Probably because I haven't TOUCHED last month's kit, but that's a whole 'nother story. :)

Onto the Design Team stuff. I'm going to start with the last projects first as I don't want the mini book to consume the first half of the post. So layout first. Create My Keepsake, one of my preferred scrappy forums, has started doing a Friday "Scrap Formula", in other words a sketch. They post them on Friday and in order to be eligible for their RAK drawing at the end of the month, you have to post them by Noon Sunday I believe. I know that it's such a limited time that odds are pretty high that I won't ever get it posted in time to be part of the drawing. Still, The Oct 3rd formula really sparked my imagination. It was a single page sketch, but I immediately saw how it could be a full 2 page layout. After many revisions and additions that took the better part of Monday, I finally ended up with a piece I really like. The more I see it, the more I like it. I figure by the end of the week, I'll love it. The papers, journaling cards and rubons are Fancy Pants Daily Grind, buttons from my hoard, Bazzill Blooms and bling from Prima.

I am constantly amazed by my daughter's ever growing imagination. This is an old, nearly defunct riding lawn mower. The DH used it to move the trailer around the back yard when he mows. Miss, on the other hand, considers it her 'tractor' and just loves to go sit on it and turn the wheel. I don't know where her imagination takes her, but I'm sure she's off riding into the sunset somewhere.



I can't really take credit for the conception of the next project. I saw a version of it on Mish's blog probably a month ago and I've just been waiting for the right products to make up a version of my own. 12x12 frames are not readily available in my area, so I went with an 11x14 clip frame. I had several ideas for how I wanted it to work out and I'm pleased to say everything came together far better than I hoped. The rubons are on the glass rather than on the paper, which means I can change out the paper and still keep those elements. I love the dimensional effect this gives, although it really doesn't come through on the picture.

I will say that you really have to want rubons on glass. It's one of those things that takes lots of elbow grease. Make sure your glass is clean. Just go ahead and clean it again to be on the safe side. It seems to help the rubons stick better when applying. Because it's glass, they're going to occasionally shift and tear. Just chalk it up to "rustic effect" because I couldn't NOT make it happen. I found for this particular design a black dry erase marker worked the best.



And the last project for the week, but certainly not the least. I got a comment on my blog a couple weeks back from my LSS owner asking if I would be interested in doing another word book. I really had a blast doing the Bo Bunny Happy book, so I figured what the heck. I called and she pointed me at the website for Heart of Texas Studios. She'd gotten a selection of their word books in stock and pretty much let me have my pick of book and paper. I waffled heavily between the OKLAHOMA book and the COWGIRL book. In the end, I decided on the COWGIRL one. She had some cute cowgirl papers, that I initially planned to use, but once I go there and started trying to make everything fall into place in my head, I knew they weren't going to work for me. While miss has loads of cowgirl attitude, I don't have any pictures of her in cowgirl gear, so the cowgirl focused papers didn't work.

After going through the store several times, I finally settled on another of my favored paper companies, BasicGrey. They've had some lines I haven't cared for but their last couple of releases have really rocked. The paper is from their Sultry line, which you wouldn't expect to work in a cowgirl theme. I'm pretty darn pleased with the results though. A lot of it has to do with the distressed/weathered look BasicGrey is known for on their papers. It meant that I had very little actual distressing to do myself. I pulled it more towards the western feel with silver heart buttons, a concho and some bright pink leather lacing. I use a combination of quotes and personal journaling to pull it all together. No tinted pictures this time. I kept each page to a double page layout style and put them in chronological order. The pictures span about 18 months.

Click the images to view them larger.

Journaling -

C - There's more than just boots and a hat to a cowgirl!

O - Rough and tough; snakes and snails and puppy dog tails; in that, sugar and spice, everything nice package.

W - you don't have to own a horse or live in the west to have the cowgirl spirit. A cowgirl attitude is a way of life. Cowgirls are independent and self-sufficient. They believe in old-fashioned values and command respect. They have a uniqueness and style that is all their own.

G - "Cowgirl is an attitude, really. A pioneer spirit, a special American brand of courage. The cowgirl faces life head on, lives by her own lights, and makes no excuses. Cowgirls take stands. They speak up. They defend the things they hold dear. A cowgirl might be a rancher, or a barrel racer, or a bull rider, or an actress. But she's just as likely to be a checker at the local Winn Dixie, a full-time mother, a banker, an attorney, an astronaut." - Dale Evans Rogers, 1992

I - She'll ride to your rescue, into your heart and off into the sunset. Squealing "yeehaw!" along the way.

R - What's a cow girl without her side kick? He's not much good for anything but drooling just yet, but as soon as he starts crawling, they'll be off! The West (and the backyard) will never be the same.

L - Linsey has a cowgirl attitude. I don't know where she gets it. I guess she must have been born with it. She yearns for the great outdoors. Her imagination turns an old run down riding lawn mower into a tractor. She is wild at heart, sassy, sweet, courageous, strong and not even three yet.