Perpetual Playtime

I made another journal . . .  This one started (as so many projects do) with a YouTube sitting session. I sometimes spend so much time travelling from one video to the next that in the end I have no idea where I started. That's the case here - I watched a video, linked from that one to another "suggested" video, on to another (rinse & repeat) and then saw one where someone (and I hate that I cannot find the video that provided my first inspiration) made a journal with envelopes. A couple of days later I went on a failed search to watch that video again and ended up watching several envelope journal videos, but never happened upon that specific video again. But I wasn't deterred since I had the general concept. However, on this subsequent video journey I did come across a video by Kathy Orta that showed her Hidden Hinge process . So I went with that and jumped right in. There are actually two different Kathy Orta videos that show the Hidden Hinge, but since...

I'm not very consistent with blog posts, and sometimes I'm just in a short hiatus from crafty stuff, but that doesn't mean I'm not slowly working on something. Right now I'm in the process of altering a piece of junk mail to turn it into something I'm happy with for a homemade journal. But that is a slow process since I'm not really sure how I want the journal cover to look. So, while that has been on my table for a couple of weeks it my still be there in another couple of weeks. For me that is just how my creative process works.  But, when I realized I had not posted any blog posts in over two months I thought I might ought to. So today I will share my granddaughters creative project. She is altering a pair of plain white Keds with Copic markers: Pretty good if you ask me!

I signed up for an online lettering class by Joanne Sharpe . I'm hoping to make myself more comfortable and happy with hand lettering . It is self-paced so you don't have to start at any particular time and, more importantly, you don't have to "stay with the class" as you work through the lessons. I like that because that means I don't have to stress about not getting a lesson finished on a deadline and falling behind. I'm expecting this to be FUN!!  One of the first things she has the class do is make a journal to do the lessons in. I will make three different journals during the class - this is just the first of three. Here is a look at the cover of my Letter Love Journal. I printed four copies of a digi-stamp from Some Odd Girl, Cold Kitty Tia , in a quad and then colored them with my Copic markers. Kinda, sorta, maybe but not quite in the color-block fashion - maybe a' la Andy Warhol. I used a bunch of Mod Podge and covered a college rule...

I colored four copies of Cold Kitty Tia by Kristy Dalman of Some Odd Girl in a version of color-block. I think generally doing color block the entire quadrant would be the one color, but I had a hard time making myself go true color block, so I just used my 4 color choices and moved them into the clothing of the four girls. And, since their clothes are not actually "identical" I couldn't go identical on their eyes and hair either, so each girl has different color eyes and hair.  So, without further ado, here are my color-block Cold Kitty Tias - colored with Copic markers: (the colors look splotchy in the picture, but I promise they are not splotchy in real life. hmmm, sad image.) I will try to do color-block the right way again some time in the future and maybe I will be more successful at it. Until then I am happy enough with my girls and I plan to use them on the cover of a Letter Love Journal I am in the process of putting together.

Did a lot of Copic coloring this past weekend. I love coloring with my Copic markers - I love how the ink flows and how the colors layer and blend. Here are the three pieces I did: First up is another Saturated Canary cutie. This one is named Canary Love. She was actually a freebie Krista posted on her blog . I just LOVE Krista's work! think all of her images are so cute. I don't own them all, but I certainly own a ton - LOL!  This is an image from Make it Crafty - Fairy Tree House . I started the mushroom tops a couple of months ago and just finished this one up this weekend. I'm bad about doing that - starting an image and not finishing for a while. I get distracted easily . . . and often. Then it just takes a while to get back to some things. In the meantime I usually strart another image so I accumulate a good many partially completed pieces. There are no less than 26 different markers used on this image. Not gonna list them, but I will upload this image t...

I have been working on my Copic Hair/Skin/Eyes sample book for a while. But I don't work on anything non-stop start-to-finish, so it is an ongoing process. And that is okay, because my sample book is not a bound book but rather an 8.5x11 portfolio . This allows me to add or remove or edit pages as I see fit. So, anyway, I had about 15 pages of hair samples that needed to be filed this past weekend and as I went through my portfolio I realized I had several images I had started but for whatever reason I simply had not finished them. As I put the hair sample pages in I straightened everything else up and moved the unfinished pieces to the front of the book so that they would be my next priority.  Good plan, because by having done that I have now finished three of those images. And, at this point I truly have no idea what colors I used for these, so . . . oh well. :/  Anyway, here they are, in no specific order: Nevaeh by Krista Smith of Saturated Canary ....

I ordered some new Copic markers this week and all eight of the fluorescent colors were in my order. They are such pretty colors that I had wanted them since they were first released. I was so excited to get them that as soon as they arrived I printed out some Karber Digital Images and started making some bright & pretty characters in costumes.  As I was coloring I mentioned to hubby dear about how bright the orange was that I was using on my little Tiger Girl and he suggested we go turn on the black light (we are old hippies and we still have a black-light from way back int he 70's. But we have several things in out basement that date us - like an Atari with a couple dozen game cartridges (I really need to hook that console up and see if Space Invaders still plays - LOL). Well, anyway, image my surprise and pleasure to find that my little Tiger Girl did glow (I was calling it a Tiger Boy until I started typing this blog post and went to the Karber si...

Today I'm posting a card I put together for OWH (operation Write Home) for the Midweek Throwdown Challenge . I was asked to make a card with a Sweet Treat theme. When I was contacted regarding this project I looked at what I had in the way of sweet treat themed materials and realized that I had very little and half of what I had was glittered (which we all know, for the safety of our troops, is an OWH no-no). So I thought I either go buy better sweet treat themed materials or I improvise. I thought improvise was a good option because so often we see cards made with all the typical, pick it up at the local craft shop, materials and if I improvise I could show how you can put together a cute card with your printer and the internet - or, if you want to get even more creative, your printer and your computer. If you have a program like Photoshop you can make your own designer papers for the backgrounds. If you don't have Photoshop there are good, and, more importantly, F...

Haven't made many cards lately, but I have been coloring up a storm. I just love my Copic markers so much that I stamped bunches of my images and colored them. Then I started wishing I had something bigger to color so it would not be finished quite so fast. You know, something that takes a little time, effort and a little more concentration. In that quest I ventured over into deviantArt and looked around. Lo and Behold, they have a group named Color-Me-Club where people upload images they drew and other people are free to download the images and color them. And so I did. Here is the first image I colored - drawn by a girl from Lithuania. I'm not 100% satisfied with my work, but she was very pleased with it. I am also working on another picture I downloaded. This is a WIP image - I am still working on deciding what colors to use for her hair. I originally chose the mermaid image so i could use her on the Copic Markers Twitter Theme Thursday Tweets, but since I am having s...

I saw a post on the Copic Marker facebook wall where some one had used an ArtBin Double Deep Satchel, some plastic  grid that goes over a fluorescent light  and wooden dowels to make wonderful  storage for Copic Markers . A few posts below that was a link to a blog post about it, but it really didn't tell much, none-the-less, here is that blog post: Scrap Happy Ohio .  [EDIT 08-11-11 to add: As can be read in the comments of this post the idea was born before the July 8 post I referenced above.  Helen Johnson blogged this storage on 04/10/11 in this post: To Cut or Color . In her post she links to the  2 sources for the idea. I love my new storage and wanted to add this paragraph for the benefit of those who may not open and read the comments below. Thank you Helen!] My markers were in a bucket type tote bag that made it hard to find the color I wanted.  This image is an older image, so I already had more markers jumbled ...