copic marker

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

Hi friends! Happy March! The days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer and sweeter (sometimes, ha), and the birds are definitely singing. Springtime is so close I can taste it! I thought I would welcome March with some springtime flowers using some of my older illustrations for Simon Says Stamp, including the Beautiful Bouquet stamp set, which was my very first illustration for Simon Says Stamp and one of my all-time favorites! I thought it would be fun to play with some updated color combinations, something a little different from my normal pinks and purples, so I turned to the Pantone Color of the Year: Peach Fuzz.

For me, peach is one of those colors that works beautifully as an accent color, but sometimes gets forgotten as a focal point color. I recently saw a photo of a gorgeous, muted peach anemone and immediately wanted to try my hand at creating my own. The anemone in the Beautiful Bouquet is one of my favorite flowers that I’ve ever drawn; the movement in the flower makes me feel like it’s blowing gracefully in the wind, so I always seem to let it be the focal point on whatever project I use it! I thought it would be lovely to add some crisp blue hydrangea and delicate blue filler flowers to complement the pretty muted peach, so I pulled out a bunch of OLO markers and got to coloring!

I started by stamping my Beautiful Bouquet image onto an A2 card front using Contour Ink from Hero Arts, which is my favorite ink for no-line coloring. Using my color chart for OLO markers, I selected markers for my flowers, creating unique blends by not remaining within one color family, but rather mixing and matching from OR, RG, and R families.

I always blend my colors out on a piece of scrap cardstock so that I can be sure that the color I’ve envisioned in my head comes to life on the paper similarly. It takes a few tries sometimes to get just the right blend, and sometimes I end up going back over the entire image with a different marker to “glaze” the image and make the undertones better fit the picture in my mind’s eye. I did some of this “glazing” with my peach rose; the rose that I had colored with the OLO markers was a bit too dull for what I intended, so I perused my Copic collection and found a peachy marker that worked perfectly in conjunction with the OLO markers that I had selected. This is my first time mixing the OLO and Copic alcohol markers together, and I am excited to see what possibilities lay ahead for creating even more unique color blends!

Because I had used my alcohol markers to color the images and kept the shadows super intense, I wanted to make sure that the center of the anemone was visible but didn’t want to use a black marker, so I pulled out some of my handmade shimmer watercolors. Since they are opaque, so they show up beautifully on the alcohol marker images.

After I had finished coloring the images, I used blending brushes to blend Simon Says Stamp’s Peachy and Ballet inks around the edges to create a beautiful “Peach Fuzz” glow. For the greeting, I die cut the Big Scripty Hugs die from some Pinkfresh Studio Rose Gold Glitter Cardstock. I wanted to help that sparkling sentiment to stand out a bit more from the colorful background, so I die cut a vellum banner using Simon Says Stamp’s Nested Banners die set. I also heat embossed a sentiment from Beautiful Bouquet onto some coordinating peach cardstock using Brass embossing powder and trimmed the strip down. I added some dots of liquid adhesive behind the solid die cut sentiment to hide the adhesive, then adhered it to the edge of my colored panel. I popped up the sentiment strip with some foam squares, overlapping the die cut sentiment, and finally added a few shimmering iridescent gems for one more touch of sparkle!

Well, that’s all for my project today welcoming spring onto my blog! I feel like I haven’t properly colored for a long time with Christmas and Valentine’s Day projects, but I have been getting reacquainted with my coloring mediums for the last four days straight, and I am here. for. it. Now for the SALE that I mentioned at the beginning of the post:

Simon Says Stamp is holding an amazing 22% off sale of *ALL Simon-branded products* to celebrate 22 years of Simon Says Stamp!!

Simply enter code BDAY22 at checkout to receive 22% off of anything Simon Says Stamp, Rainbow Splash, or CZ Design from now through 3/3/24! (Including nearly all of the products that I’ve used on my project today!!) What a fantastic way to welcome the new month, right?

Also- if you missed out on Heidi’s Livestream from earlier today, she (and guests Gina K and Jennifer McGuire) explained alllll things CREATE. (Watch the replay HERE.) Click HERE see all of the details about CREATE! I am so excited to be attending and helping out again this year!

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and happy shopping!

September is here, and with it comes all things pumpkin, scarves, annnndd…. Stamptember with Simon Says Stamp, where the stamping community celebrates all things stampy and wonderful! This is the 11th Stamptember for Simon Says Stamp, and not only do they design wonderful new products for their own brand during this month, but they also have fabulous collaborations with the other stamp companies that we know and love! Today’s collaboration set comes to you from Studio Katia, for whom I had the pleasure of designing for almost a year before my little guys were born. Studio Katia is known for their beautiful floral designs, perfect for coloring (and right up my alley!), and the Stamptember collaboration sets are just charming! I only had time to make one project, but there are two sets available tonight, and to celebrate Heidi’s birthday…. they’re doing a buy one, get one free! That’s right; if you buy the exclusive Stamptember Studio Katia set, Floral Bunches …

… you will receive the Birthday Floral for free! What a wonderful way to celebrate Heidi’s birthday!

For my project today, I used the free gift with purchase stamp set, Birthday Floral Bunches to create a card that screams September to me: not quite summer, but not quite autumn yet, either. I paired deep mustard and olive with coral and fuchsia to create this pretty project. Let’s get started with the details!

I began by stamping the main floral image three times, first on a panel of white, Copic-friendly cardstock, then again on a Post-It Note and fussy cutting to create a mask, then again on the white cardstock panel with the mask applied. I used Hero Arts Intens-ified Black Ink to stamp the image to completely cover the long end of a panel of A2 cardstock. I used my Copic markers to color the images in this unique combination!

After my image had been colored completely, I used very sharp scissors to fussy cut around the long edge of the cardstock panel. Next, I used Studio Katia Blending Brushes to blend some beautiful gold and orange inks along the straight edge of my white cardstock: Marigold and Clementine, both from Pinkfresh Studio.

After ink blending, I used foam adhesive to pop up the colored and blended panel on an A2 panel of Hero Hues Plum cardstock to help bring out the fuchsia in my floral swag. I heat embossed the greeting from the Birthday Floral Bunches on a rectangle of black cardstock using some rose gold embossing powder. The final touch was to add some black gems for a hint of sparkle!

Well, that’s all for today’s project! Keep your eyes trained on Simon Says Stamp this month; they’ve got loads of fantastic new products revealed throughout the month, and many of them are limited edition…. once they’re gone, they’re gone! Today’s promotion is no exception. The promotion lasts only on 9/3/20, so if you want to receive the gorgeous freebie, purchase your Floral Bunches early-it’s only while supplies last.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Happy birthday, Heidi, and happy Stamptember!