More is More

I had so much FUN hanging out with my stampin’ buds yesterday!  We laugh so much!  I managed to get quite a bit of work done on a batch of Christmas cards, so that was cool too.  They aren’t finished yet though – I’ll share when they are (who knows when that will be?  LOL!). 

Taylor was working on a couple of different swaps and she was using some Prisma Markers and Copic Markers.  (Is Copic pronounced like “cope-ick” or “cop-ick”?  That was topic of discussion all day!)  She only had about 4 or 5 colors with her (of her vast collection) and I asked if I could try them out.  She was working with some Bella images so she gave me one to stamp and color.  Next thing you know the whole table was obsessed with using her markers – oops – sorry Taylor.  It’s a good thing she didn’t bring her whole new set!

It’s funny because I have been reading about these markers quite a bit on blogs and SCS – most recently on Debbie Olson’s blog.  Also I had heard about them at CHA at the Whippersnapper booth where all the amazing samples were colored with them.  Although they sounded intriguing I really had no interest in them because I have heard time and again that they have a steep learning curve to be able to blend them.  Unless I could be taught hands on in a class/workshop setting I felt that it would be too frustrating for me.  And then along comes Taylor and her danged few markers.  *eye roll*  I still have absolutley no idea how to blend them, but just coloring with them was super fun – even though I just did the one image.

I wouldn’t normally choose green and orange as my color combo, but like I said the selection was limited and in the end I was thrilled with my little Bella image.  So today I decided to turn the image into a card.  I started rifling through my designer paper for something in the right color range and very quickly came upon this SEI Winnie’s Walls paper I purchased from eP a few weeks ago.  I then went through my Prismatics cardstock sampler to find some good coordinating colors and ended up with Desert Coral Medium for the base of this 5.5″ square card.  I also pulled out some other coordinating colors to keep with this line of dp for future use.  The green layer is the solid side of one of the SEI patterns.

Once I had the colors pulled together I remembered a card that Anna Wight did for my SFFE challenge using this line of dp.  I loved the use of the big flower background.  I didn’t realize until I was completely finished with this card and then went back and looked at Anna’s card, how much hers really influenced me.  I would almost say that my card is a CASE of hers.  You can see Anna’s card here.

I used Queen & Co. brads in the four corners of the image and the newest thing I am absolutely giddy over – an Adorn It Jewel Droplet on the flower on her purse.  I just got a pack of clear and a pack of multi-colored from Joy and Daisy yesterday.  Of all the incredible things we saw at CHA this is the one item I wanted more than anything and have been hounding Joy and Daisy about for months.  They are self-adhesive and such a FUN new type of bling – a great alternative to crystals or rhinestones (not that I could ever get enough of those either!) – you MUST get some!!

The large flower petals are outlined with a Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust pen – very nice sparkly touch in person.  I kept thinking I wanted something in that big flower center and it came to me – a sentiment.  I reached for my Paper Trey Faux Ribbon set and evaluated my choices.  I loved “Season’s greetings” since this really is such a “seasonal” card.  *grin*

I want to say thanks to Joy for having us all over yesterday (and thanks to her husband for letting us have run of the place until late into the evening).  And to my stampin’ buds – I am so blessed to have such a fun group of gals to hang with!

I won’t be placing my new catty order until next weekend after my New Catty Party Friday night.  So to stave off the nail-biting wait I’m going to try to keep busy – plenty to do as I have several *projects* I am in charge of organizing over the next week or two.  I’ll share when I can – some fun stuff upcoming.  *wink*  Thanks for stopping by.