Makeover Week - Day 4 Hold it part 2

Tuesday I showed you 2 versions of the "Making the Grade" stamp set from My Favorite Things. Today I have more stamps from My Favorite Things where someone is holding something but like yesterday the sets are retired.

Beakers to Vases

The first card features the set, Scientist. This card was fun to put together but took a lot longer than I anticipated. This beaker holding, smock wearing little girl got a bit of a makeover.  Her beaker has been turned into a vase to hold a sweet bouquet of flowers from the retired Inkadinkado "Lots of Pots" set. Her five button lab coat looks more like a pediatric dental hygienist's smock.

Dig all that dimension. 

I stamped the new My Favorite Things Small Brick Background Stamp onto a tan card stock, then used the Copic Airbrush to color them red.  I love this stamp, the bricks are perfectly proportioned for the rest of the My Favorite Things stamps. I cut out a window then had to make a window frame - more cutting. The wood grain on the window and the window box is from the Heidi Swapp Woodgrain background. I used washi tape to mask off the corners to give it a mitered look. I really like how that part turned out. I put the whole panel on 3M foam tape for some depth.


The valance in the window is a bit of lacy ribbon glued on the back of the brick panel. The window box is popped out with dimensional tape as well. The pots are from the Inkadinkado set I mentioned before. The plants growing in them are the waste side of the grass punch from Martha Stewart.

---------- FAILURE WAS INEVITABLE ----------

Last week when I wrote about rebooting the blog I told you I was going to fail to deliver from time to time. I had posts planned out. I had a editorial calendar in place and life still got in the way in the first week.

Sciatica, severe back pain and tingling fingers and toes, dog sitting and doctor's appointments were not all scheduled for this week when I wrote that post but they happened anyway. So Day 4 of makeover week is happening on Day 5 and you are going to miss some pretty awesome cards this week. I will post them next week. No biggie. That's the great thing about being the boss. You can change the rules midstream. Ask any parent -- it happens all the time.

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You Rock Loveasaurus 

The last card features one of my favorite images by Claire Keay. The little Loveasaurus stamp used to be sold by My Favorite Stamps but they no longer carry Keay images. You can still get a digital version at the Jellypark page at PayHip.com as well as a lot of other Keay images.

The Copics got a work out on this card. This image is so fun to color and I love adding the added bits of interest like the stripes on the tail and the dots on the spine plates. The curtain and stage were freehanded but the guitar and sentiment are from the Stampendous set "Rock Out". The guitar was colored with Copics then coated in Versamark ink and embossed so the whole guitar is shiny.

I cut the arm of the Loveasaurus tucked the guitar under it. Masking to make this happen may be possible but I wasn't up for trying to do it that way.

Research on where to get Stampendous "Rock Out set turned up nothing, nil, nada. So again probably retired.

I matted the image on some kraft paper so it would pop more then decided to do a bit of decorating with my Signo Uni-ball white gel pen. I may have gone overboard but I like it. I even dotted his guitar strap so it stands out a bit more. The background is from a DCWV Matstack called Old World.

About the links

I am not part of any affiliate program - yet. I don't make any money if you follow a link and buy something - yet. So all the links here are either from the manufacturer because they are the only one selling the product or are from the site with the lowest price today. There is a 30% off sale on papercrafting supplies at JoAnn Fabrics right now so several of the links go to that site. 

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Happy Crafting,

Makeover Week Day 3 - Boy Howdy

Unless they are wearing hats the Pure Innocence boys from My Favorite Things are all bald. Have you ever noticed that? Bald. My son has a head full of curly hair so like his mother, the Pure Innocence kid doesn't look anything like him. This wasn't going to work for Scout Thank You cards.

Because he is bald I didn't need to tape off hair I just needed to add it. This Boy Scout stamp set's sentiments had to do with scouting. There was no "thank you" available so I had to go to other Pure Innocence sets. The "thank you" is from Firefighter Girl and the "so much" is from Soldier Girl - both retired.

The second card features a bit more hair and a lot more scenery. The clouds, tents and trees are from an old Inkadinkado set called On the Road Again. And the Sentiment, which echoes through the valley, is from a retired Studio Calico set. 

Unfortunately the Boy Scout set has been retired. I'm seeing a trend of unavailable stamp sets.

Happy Crafting,

Makeover Week Day 2 - Hold It

Yesterday I showed you how to change the hairstyle of a stamped image. Today's cards feature the same tape technique to remove a chalk board. This image called Making the Grade is from the Pure Innocence by My Favorite Things. It's the perfect image for saying congratulations to a student but I saw other things in this girl's future.

In the first card she is missing her jump rope partner on the playground. The textured background was spritzed with red ink to make it look more like bricks. The chalk in her right hand was used as a handle for a jump rope made of embroidery floss. The floss was adhered with matte medium so I know it's not going anywhere unless the recipient wants it to.




The second card features this same little girl walking her Schnauzer. The dog is from Lawn Fawn's Critters in the Dog Park set. It was drawn as a Scottie but as we have a Schnauzer it's tail was cropped further and it was colored as a Schnauzer. The chalk has now become the handle to a leash made of twine.



Both images were colored with Copics and a White Uni-Ball Signo Gel Pen.

Makeover Week Day 3 - Boy Howdy

Happy Crafting,

Makeover Week Day 1 - Change the Hair

I am in love with the Pure Innocence line from My Favorite Things. That little girl is so cute. Unfortunately she has nearly the same hairstyle in every image. Do you have the same hairstyle day in and day out? Do you ever use a curling iron? A straightening wand? A rounded brush?

I didn’t see myself in her image. I have long, naturally curly hair. Sometimes I wear my hair up, sometimes not, but it is never straight. I wanted the Pure Innocence girl to look more like me, so it was time for that little lady to get a makeover.

Tools I used:

•      My favorite things stamp of your choice
•      Acrylic block
•      Black Ink
•      Standard copy paper
•     Tracing paper or vellum
•      Pencil
•     Cellophane Tape
•     Card stock for your project
•    Black fine line marker, I used Copic multi-liner .03
•   Erasure

How to get your look

1.  Stamp your image on standard copy paper.
2. Cover image with tracing paper or vellum, and draw the hair you like.
   
3. Turn the tracing paper or vellum over and lightly scribble over the lines you drew.
4.  Clean and dry your stamp. Cover the hair on the stamp image with tape, making sure the tape goes beyond the image. 
   
5.  Ink up your stamp. The tape will be very inky. Carefully remove and discard the tape.
6.  Stamp your image on your card stock. Doesn’t she look odd with the top of her head gone?
7. Put the tracing paper or vellum, drawing side up – scribble side down, where her hair should be.
   
         
8.  Lightly trace your drawing of her hair. 
9. Remove the tracing paper or vellum.
10. There will be faint pencil line where you traced.
       
11.  Get out your fine line marker and trace again. You can add more detail at this point if you like. When the ink is fully dry erase any pencil marks remaining.
12. Color your image as you normally would. Keep in mind that if you are using Copics or watercolor the pen you use to draw with will make a big difference, test before you color.

Voilà! She now has a new do.

The whole idea of having her wear different hairstyles came from a black smudge on her forehead. I didn’t want to waste the coloring I had done or the patterned paper that made her kimono because of a stupid smudge, so I gave her bangs. That particular image had black hair so it was fairly easy to do. 

Why use vellum or tracing paper you ask? Because when you first get started proportions can be difficult. I tried to just draw the hair but she ended up looking really weird. Having a reference is a good thing.

Here are other Pure Innocence Good Fortune image with new hairdos.

Those streaks were intentional. It's not bad Copic coloring.

Makeover Week Day 2 - Hold On

Happy Crafting,

Rocking Dinosaur

Lately it's all about Rock and Roll. I took a break from working on the Rock Star Rosie website and made a few cards with a rock theme. Most were pink, black and silver like Rosie's new website. After of few of those I went a different direction and made this one. It is by far my favorite.

The particulars

Paper: Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake, Long Retired patterned paper

Stamps: Studio Calico Thank You, Stampendous "Rock Out", My Favorite Things "Little Loveosaurus" Ink:  Stampin' Up! Wild Wasabi and Bashful Blue for the lettering,  Copic Markers to color the image.

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Happy Crafting,

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Happy Valentine's Day

I wanted to make a card for Valentine's Day for my son. The card I posted the other day was not going to cut it for an 8 year old. So I looked at my images and found one that I thought would work for him. Before making the card I was blog hopping and found a couple of challenges I wanted to join - hey let's kill 2-3 birds with one stone card.


On the Moxie Fab World blog today's challenge is "Create a stamped paper crafted project (card, gift bag, tag, layout, home decor item, mini-book cover, etc.) that incorporates a stamping with markers technique in an innovative way." On Nicole Heady's blog her Make it Monday Challenge is to use a vellum sentiment strip. Well I failed on Nicole's challenge miserably with this card. I'll have to work on that and maybe post another one later.

BUT I did use vellum on the My Favorite Things Little Loveosaurus, which I turned into a dragon with the help of some fire. The image was stamped on vellum and then colored on the opposite side. The background is watercolor paper, probably not the best material for Copics but my white card stock order has not arrived and I just used the white I had on hand.

I free handed the fire and started coloring with the limited number of markers I have. I used Acid Yellow (Y08) for the base, then when over certain parts with Blush (R20). I knew that I wanted to have a red/orange color but my Lipstick Red (R29) was going to be too harsh and on the watercolor paper probably wouldn't blend well so I scribbled a bit of the red on my craft sheet and used the yellow marker to blend it -- basically using it the way I would it I were using watercolors. I really like the way the fire turned out and think this more than satisfies the challenge of markers used in an innovative way.

One thing I've noticed about using new materials. I generally use them in ways that are innovative because I'm not sure how to use them in the first place. I am always making things up as I go. I really need to find a good Copic class or a tutor so I am using these things properly. Anyone know of a Chicago area class I can take without breaking the bank?

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Happy Crafting,

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