Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Spooky Gate

Arrrrggg, Good Mornin' to ya all, I missed talked like at pirate day yesterday, so there's my little shout out to it. I can't believe we're almost to October! I know they say the older you get the quicker time goes, but come on! We've already good my daughter's costume for Halloween. She's ready to put the Halloween decorations up, I'm not quite there yet.
The October Technique class I'll be doing uses Distress Inks, a brayer and heat embossing. It's a lot of fun to use the brayer, you never get the same thing twice and it won't be perfect. That's okay because I don't want it to be. The cool stamp is Metal Flourish from Hero Arts. I thought it looked like it belonged in front of the Adams Family's house. The pumpkins are die cuts from Spellbinders - love, love love them! This would be a great card to make for a party invite, I know you may not traditionally sent a Halloween card, but it sure if fun makin them.
The class is Monday, October 10 @ 6:00 and the cost is $3. Anything class related (distress inks, brayer, stamp etc.) is 20% off the night of the class. So, give Scrap 'N Friends a call or leave a comment here to sign up for class. It'll be a spooky fun time!

Also, for my fellow Copic fanatics out there, Copic Color (Copic's art community - like Facebook) is having a 6 color challenge. There's an image to download and you color it using only 6 colors - I know what you're thinking, but it can be done! It's challenging, but fun. Entries must be posted on the Copic Facebook page by Sept. 23rd. If you aren't on the Copic Color community, check it out. There's lots of different art to see, everything from Fine art to Paper Crafting. Also, you can keep track of your collection - there's even an app for smart phones so you can take your collection with you and know what colors you need to get!

Until next time!
Jodi

Monday, September 12, 2011

You Make The Grade


Hello (I need my daughter here - she does a great Heidi Klum impression),
Anywho, here we are almost mid-way through September! Yikes! Our fun Copic coloring class is coming up here before too long...Tuesday, Sept. 27 in the afternoon and Wednesday, Sept. 28th @ 6:00 in evening. I know it seems like a big ol' list of markers that you need, but if you've been joining us in past classes chances are, you'll have everything you need with the exception of the E00, E01, E02 and the adorable stamps set "You Make the Grade" by My Favorite Things. If you're not sure, the other colors you'll need are E13, E15, E17, C7, C9, RV21, RV23, and RV25. I know several of you have been asking about coloring people, so here ya go! We needed to build up our Copic collections a bit first - besides, what fun would it be to just color flesh - you need to be able to color the clothes and hair too. That would just be weird. I used the notebook Tim Holtz Texture fade as well as some fun new paper by Cosmo Cricket. Just a reminder there are 2 classes on 2 different days - Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening. I hope to see you at one! Contact me here on the blog and leave a comment or give us a buzz at Scrap 'N Friends at 833-2600.
Until next time,
Jodi

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Shrinky Dinks and Copics


My good friend Ann asked me a while back if I had tried  using my Copics on Shrinky Dinks - my answer - "Yes, yes I have." I tend to like anything that revolves around using my heat gun and yes, you can shrink those puppies with a heat gun! It's waaaaay more fun than watching it thru the oven door, plus you can help it flatten out better. Anyway, when I did my little experiment, I used some white shrinky dink stuff you could send thru an inkjet printer. (Clear would be fun for a sun-catcher look) Now that said, you have to be careful about coloring. I purposely stayed away from the black when I colored. I wasn't taking any chances. I know you can stamp with Stays-On etc., but I think, especially being a slick surface, I would still try not to get too close to the black lines. I also found that if you can us a digi stamp for this, depending on what you want to use the end result for, you can start out much bigger. A stamped image is going to get pretty small. You can see the size I started with and what I ended with in the photo. Being that you are working on a smooth surface, you can't really do any blending with your Copics. When you first start coloring you will notice that even a dark color seems pretty light. Don't let it fool you. When you shrink it down the colors will be much more intense. In some cases much brighter than on paper. These particular digi stamps came from The Greeting Farm (one of my favs), Soccer Anya - I made this for my daughter to put on her backpack zipper and Chibi Spain. So, if you get a chance to experiment with Copics and Shrinky Dinks it is a lot of fun. You could make ornaments, embellishments, even earrings!
Give it a try - you know you want to....
Until next time,
Jodi