Falliday Fest tutorial: Copic Bleed Technique

Today's tutorial over at Splitcoast is a fun coloring technique from Kathy Racoosin called the Copic Bleed Technique. This is a two-for-one background technique using alcohol markers and a coloring page. As you color on the thin paper, it bleeds through to a sheet of cardstock, so you end up with this...

...and this! I picked up a small coloring book that had a lot of full-page designs and the kind of thin pages that work well for this technique. The sentiment I used is from my Snow Flourish clear set.

Come over to the Falliday Fest Challenge Forum for all the details!

Impression Obsession DT Challenge: Fall Birthdays

The Impression Obsession team's challenge today is to create a project with a fall birthday theme. I immediately thought of this Party Table image - it's an older one, but it looks perfect for a Halloween birthday party!

I colored the image in with Copic and Touch markers.

Be sure to check out these other designers' blogs for inspiration -

Anna @ Sassy & Sweet Notes
Daniela @ For the First Time
Dina @ Mama Dini's Stamperia ---- you're here
Jeanne @ Inky Paws
Jenny @ One Krafty Kat
Karen @ Paper Lilies and Ink
Kittie @ Kittie Kraft
Laura @ Laura's Stamp Art Journal
Vicki @ Summerthyme Studio

Remember you can enter these challenges too, using your Impression Obsession stamps! See the I.O. blog for all the details - you might even win a $25 gift certificate!! We'd love to have you join us.

Impression Obsession DT Challenge: Trick or Treat

The Impression Obsession team's challenge today is to create a project with a Halloween theme.

I started off with this bouquet image:

and then used some smaller stamps to fill the bouquet with Halloween cheer - each image was masked off and then popped up with foam tape for more dimension.

I did my coloring with Touch and Copic markers, and added a few dots of Nuvo drops to try them out. :)

Stamps I used: Sunflower Bouquet, Trick or Treat, Spidee, Ben, Bart, Skully  

Be sure to check out these other designers' blogs for inspiration -

Anna @ Sassy & Sweet Notes
Daniela @ For the First Time
Dina @ Mama Dini's Stamperia ---- you're here
Jeanne @ Inky Paws
Jenny @ One Krafty Kat
Karen @ Paper Lilies and Ink
Kittie @ Kittie Kraft
Laura @ Laura's Stamp Art Journal
Vicki @ Summerthyme Studio

Remember you can enter these challenges too, using your Impression Obsession stamps! See the I.O. blog for all the details - you might even win a $25 gift certificate!! We'd love to have you join us.

IODT/Cardmaker Blog Hop

Today the Impression Obsession design team is joining up with the CardMaker team for a blog hop - thanks for stopping by! If you're a regular reader of my blog and just happened upon my section of the blog hop, you may want to head to either the IO blog or CardMaker blog. If you should happen to get lost or interrupted along the way, you can always go there for a complete list of links in the correct order. Impression Obsession will be hosting a giveaway of a $25 gift certificate, so be sure to catch the details on that too!

If you came to my blog from Daniela's blog you are doing just fine. 

My card is a quick and simple one - this large bloom was easy to color and packs a real punch! I laid in a base color on all the petals using Touch Twin Markers and then pulled out some shading from the flower center with a darker color.

Stamps I used: Abstract Zinnia, Making a Difference

From here you're going to be visiting Juliana Michaels over at 17turtles! Thanks for stopping by to see me! 

Impression Obsession DT Challenge: A Day at the Beach

The Impression Obsession team's challenge today is to create a project with a beach theme. This card was one of my board samples from last summer's release - I love lighthouses, and Gary's artistic style captures them perfectly.

I used Touch Twin Markers to loosely color the scene, and did some palette blending with a rubbing alcohol in a waterbrush for the sky and water. (I have a very old video showing that technique HERE - I should probably redo that one!)

The wheel embellishment is die cut from chipboard covered in aluminum foil tape, and attached to the card with a mini brad. The burlap ribbon is from The Stamp Simply Ribbon Store. :)

IO products I used: Lighthouse with Flowers, Mini Nautical die set

Be sure to check out these other designers' blogs for inspiration -

Anna @ Sassy & Sweet Notes
Daniela @ For the First Time
Dina @ Mama Dini's Stamperia ---- you're here
Jeanne @ Inky Paws
Jenny @ One Krafty Kat
Karen @ Paper Lilies and Ink
Kittie @ Kittie Kraft
Laura @ Laura's Stamp Art Journal
Vicki @ Summerthyme Studio

Remember you can enter these challenges too, using your Impression Obsession stamps! See the I.O. blog for all the details - you might even win a $25 gift certificate!! We'd love to have you join us.

Splitcoast Tutorial: Circle Spinner

This week's tutorial over at Splitcoast is a Circle Spinner card - it's a fun variation on the spinner cards we used to make with a single straight cut, and dies make all the difference! Here's my card... and I thought I'd show off a few of the new Impression Obsession stamps in my sample! These are from Lindsay Ostrom's line - she has such a fun style.

Instead of using a contrasting paper, I stamped the image twice and colored the images up the same with Copic and Touch markers - this let me position the spinner track over the image without losing any of the details.

You can see how the two images layer together - and the bat spins (or it's supposed to!) around the little track. I'm having some issues getting it all the way around - not sure what science I'm missing... but it's still fun.

Stamps I used: Mr. P. Umpkin, Bart, Going Batty 

Remember you still have time to comment on the IO designers' blogs for your chance to win a $25 gift certificate - we're giving away 4 of them! For all the details and links, check the IO Blog. All the new Fall/Winter stamps are available in the IO webstore now, and headed to a stamp store near you. (By the way, if you ever see my stamps in your LSS, will you send me a picture? I'd love to see! You can tag me on Instagram at dinakowalcreative !)

Splitcoast Tutorial: Coloring Transparent Objects

Here are a couple of samples that I made for Jennie's tutorial on Coloring Transparent Objects! This was such a fun tutorial to follow - Jennie's such an experienced teacher so it was fun to add her to my collection of tutorial authors. :)

The tutorial features balloons, but I wanted to show that it could be used for other objects too... I just didn't have too many to choose from that had overlapping transparent objects! I found this image from Taylored Expressions - maybe tomorrow I'll play around with some masking to expand the gallery a little more.

I colored the image with Touch Twin Markers. The sentiment is from Unity Stamps, and the background panel was one of my test panels for the Stamped Masking tutorial we shared last week.

My second card features an image from A Day For Daisies - I love to peek over there for freebies now and then! I love her sweet and sentimental style. (And now with Evernote I can actually remember what digis I have!) Again, the sentiment here is from Unity Stamps.

Hope you'll give this one a try! xo

Power Poppy - Created to Create

I'm hopping with the Power Poppy team today - every once in a while I get a chance to use a new digital stamp set and play along! Even though I don't always get to participate, I simply adore this team, and this company. :)

As soon as I saw this new design, I fell in love, and knew that I wanted to make something that could hang in my studio. Here's my project - the finished frame is a Goodwill rescue, and it's 12" square.

I printed the image on Canva-Paper and colored with Touch Twin Markers, using a waterbrush filled with rubbing alcohol for some of the shading. This is what the frame looked like when I bought it....... .. ha!

I pulled out the glass and mats and stamped a damask pattern around the frame with pigment ink, then embossed with black powder...

Next I covered the frame with acrylic paint...

...and after that was dry, I sanded some of the paint away for a distressed look - revealing some of the embossing, and some of the white underneath.

Here's a closer look at the colored piece - these are my favorite colors and some of my favorite flowers, and I will love looking at this in my studio for a reminder of why I do what I do! Thanks Marcy!

Please visit the Power Poppy blog for a list of who's hopping today, and a peek at the other digital set being released!

Mix-Ability challenge: Birth Flower

This week's Mix-Ability challenge is an inspiration challenge - be inspired by the flower that represents your birth month. Mine is a carnation... I don't love carnations, but I found a pretty digital stamp for free at Bird's Cards, so I went with a literal interpretation of the theme. I found a speckled variety of carnation that reminded me of our Pointillism tutorial, so I used that technique.

This is the image as I colored it... after I finished the blooms, I decided I didn't want to add any more color to it, so I left the stems white instead of moving on to green.

The image was cut into 9 squares using a Sizzix Gridworks (retired) die... I traced each opening with a mechanical pencil while the pieces were still in the die. Each square is layered onto a 1.5" Art Square from Inchie Arts. I intended to fit the image back together like it is above and put the sentiment in the upper left corner, but it didn't look right, so I did some shuffling until it looked balanced. The sentiment is from a Power Poppy set.

I've been working again this week on trying to index my unmounted stamps so I can catalog them using Evernote. I finally enlisted my daughter's help to stamp each image... we are up to almost 1200 stamps in the index, and we have so many more boxes to go... *sigh* But I'm hoping to have a system that is easy to navigate so someday I can have a sort of library and more open studio. We'll see what happens!

Have a wonderful weekend, and Happy Valentine's Day to you!

Mix-Ability challenge: Fashion inspired

This week's Mix-Ability challenge is to be inspired by fashion in some way. I have been thoroughly fascinated by the latest men's release from Gucci - if you have seen it you will understand my fascination and confusion... anyway, when I saw the challenge theme, I knew I wanted to dig into that collection for my inspiration. Here's my card:

...and the outfit that inspired me. Words sort of fail.

photo source

The image I colored for my card is from a brand new coloring book from Katy Sue Designs - I just read that it will be released Feb. 10. It's beautiful! I started my coloring by filling in the image with my lightest shades using Touch markers.

To add shading, I used Prismacolor Pencils, layering colors and blending with light shades to pull the colors together. 

I started sponging the edges and realized I must have some grains of Brusho in my sponge... decided I liked that effect, and added some streaks to the background as well. I stamped some textured into the background to add to the vintage effect, too.

Hope you'll join us for the challenge - there are so many options!

Pugs and a million hits!

Over the weekend I hit a milestone on my blog - my hit counter rolled over 1,000,000! I was so excited when the hit counter got close that I posted a giveaway to Facebook to whoever made the numbers tip. And then... of course... I was checking to see if we were there yet... and... I  was the one who made it tip. 

Derp.

Which was exciting... but... I didn't get to send any happy mail out! So... let's have a quick drawing here just for fun! Leave a comment on this post letting me know 1) something you've learned here, 2) a product you'd like to see me review, or 3) a stamp or set you'd like to see me design. 

I'll draw a name Wednesday (Jan. 20) at midnight eastern time, and announce the winner Thursday the 21st. Winner will get a package of goodies from my stash.

Just for fun, one of my show samples from the new release at CHA - some of you requested that this little pugger be made into a stamp when I drew it a few months ago, so I hope you'll take a peek! The pug is HERE, and I paired it with a punny sentiment that you can find HERE. My sample was colored with Touch Twin Markers.

I am having the hardest time getting back into a routine after my weekend at CHA - I'm exhausted. I drew a lot over the weekend - trying to get a good grouping of stamps and sets together for the summer release deadline in a couple of weeks.

Hope you have a great week!