Monday, June 25, 2012

Circles Up!


Sometimes you stumble across a project that you just have to scraplift! This is mine. I finally came up with a name for it -- Circles Up! I stumbled across the layout on www.spottedcanary.com in the "All About Me" section of scrapbooking projects. Brittny Kvilhaug actually submitted the project on Feb 13, this year. Of course, I made lots of changes, but you can certainly recognize the inspiration of it all. Now all I have to do is decide whether or not to add a second page to the layout . . . As far is journaling is concerned, I would cut a small circle in vellum, journal and adhese.

This is a great little project that took me more time to photograph than build. It offers opportunities to demonstrate for cutting circles (punches, vs electronic die cuts, vs hand cutting, vs gadget cutting, etc.), creating faux lace edging, and decorative scoring. In other words, with a few minor adjustments, this could end up on my class schedule on our website (www.scrappigators.com)

As far as products are concerned, I used the Graphic 45 "Once Upon a Springtime" paper pack for the circles and flourish, Bazzill Vintage Pink as my cardstock base, for the top flourish, and for the larger circle designed to hold a round photo, and Bazzill Berry Blush for the top piece of cardstock. My lace edging was torn from a Wilton doily sponged with Close To My Heart's Cotton Candy Exclusive Inks. I cut the smaller circles using the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, the larger circle and two fourishes from Close To My Heart's Art Philosophy Cricut carrtridge and the "Dream" title with Cricut's Sophisticated Cartridge. I added extra "bling" by placing self-adhesive faux pearls on the flourishes and at the scored intersections. Of course, Close To My Heart products are available on http://dianecook.myctmh.com.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Copic 101 Revised

After almost a year of teaching my Inkadinkado Copic Floral Class, I decided it was time to refresh my Copic 101 class and start to work on Copic 102 -- Birds and Bugs OR Birds, Butterflies and Bugs. While the cornerstone of the class is working with these IN-CRED-BLE Copic markers, I'm also integrating some primo products from SparkleNSprinkle. In this case, I used the Celestial Glitter to set off the floral centers. I also used SparkleN Sprinkles Blossoms Stamp set to create this WONderful card bouquet. My papers came from Bazzill, Paper Cuts, Melissa Frances and Recollections. I'm also redirecting my color blending pallete embrace the balance of threes. in this case, my "threes" are pink and blue -- selected to embrace Copic Blending rules. Best of all, I got to use my Sizzix Vagabond (brand new happy dance for major progress on decluttering my craft room) to cut out the Spellbinders Nestibilities. That's when I discovered what I ddin't have but is now on order to maximize the awesomeness of my Sizzix. Another big bonus lies with my newly revamped website (www.scrappigators.com) -- a continuing work in progress. I've streamlined the site a bit and am excited to see what the changes will bring.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Scrappigators Copic Club Flower of the Month Test Drive

I'm revisiting, revamping, and reworking our Scrappigators Copic program. At the recommendation of one of my students, I'll be offering a 3-5 tiered teaching program with each having its own monthly club offering. I'm totally excited about my Copic Florals class. I cardlifted the circle call-out element from the Annie's Attic Copic 2 book but scaled it down to a 4.25" x 5.5" card. After watching a Copic Sketch DVD from Imagination International, I decided to create my own background. I also decided to use At You Spica pens for the center of the flowers which are from the Gina K "A Year of Flowers" stamp set. So you see, it's totally a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a cool techniques. You can't really tell on this photo, but the center flower's call-out element is backed with foam dots to give it some extra dimension.
I used the following markers to complete this project:
* B000- Pale Porcelain Blue
* BOO - Frost Blue
* B02 – Robins Egg Blue
* BG05 – Holiday Blue
* At You Spica 02 - Pink
* At You Spica 10 - Black
* At You Spica 14 – Blossom