TESC139: Toad-ally Awesome!

Happy Friday! Are you ready for another wonderful Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge? What a great way to kick off the holiday weekend! I adore the Trick or Sweet II set and wanted to use that adorable toad image & sentiment for a birthday card. I also just can't put down these MME Lime Twist 6x6 paper pads. They are all so cute! I use the Fly a Kite pattern because of the fun bright colors which are perfect for a birthday card. I colored the image using Copic markers. I added some spots to the toad using the colorless blender. I tweaked the sentiment a bit by swapping out the "toad-allly awesome Halloween" to "toad-ally awesome ... Birthday" by using the "Birthday" sentiment from Sweet Celebration. I hope you enjoy this week's TE Sketch Challenge and play along with us. There's an opportunity to win a prize with each TE Sketch Challenge. You can get all the details at the Taylored Expressions Forum on SCS.


Ready to play along? Be sure to stop by and visit the rest of the Sketch Crew for some inspiration. We also have another 2 fabulous guest designers this week - Rosemary Dennis and Kelli Hull

• Dawn Easton
  
• Jami Sibley
• Lisa Hjulberg
• Lori Craig
• Melissa Sauls
• Monika Davis
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tracy Clemente

Thanks for visiting and Happy Friday!

ICopic Weekly Challenge #31 - Shadows

Happy Monday! Welcome to another wonderful iCopic Weekly Challenge. This week's challenge is a great one. One I know that has challenged us all at one time or another and that is shadows. Shadows are key in so many ways. They ground our images and make them come to life. I chose the Plus One stamp set by Lawn Fawn to demonstrate. It's not only a super cute set, but the oven is a perfect image to use for this week's challenge. Let's go step by step.

Step 1: I started off by picking my light source to be on the right hand side. I then lightly drew an outline of how I imagined the shadow would be cast using W1. As you can see I added the shape of the top of the oven just to give it more of a realistic shadow.


Step 2: I then added in the cast shadows closest to the image on the left hand side and underneath the oven using W3.


Step 3: I blended out the cast shadows with W1 and then blended out the entire outline of the shadow with the colorless blender to soften the edges.

Hope you have fun creating shadows! iCopic has lots a great stamps and of course those wonderful Copic markers to get you shadowing. They also have in store a wonderful Shadows & Shading guide book to further develop your skills. It's a great resource to have. Hope you will join us for this week's challenge. We always look forward to seeing your creations! Be sure to visit the iCopic Blog for the challenge rules and to link up your challenge creation.

Thanks for visiting and Have a wonderful Monday!


Rachel's Recipe:
Stamps: Plus One (Lawn Fawn)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Copic Markers
Paper: X-Press IT Blending Card Paper (Copic), Aqua Mist CS (PTI) and Patterned Paper (MME)
Accessories: Cotton Candy Divine Twine, Button (Cosmo Cricket), Ribbon (American Crafts), Sewing Machine, Stardust Stickles and 3D Foam Tape (Best Creation)

Copic Colors: 0, C1, C2, C4, E51, E53, R81, R83, RV17, RV19, W1 , W3

TESC138 - Happy Friday the 13th!!!

Hello Friends! Happy Friday the 13th! It started off with a bang as Blogger was down all last night and this morning. I am so happy I am finally able to post and bring you another fabulous sketch from Taylor. It's sure to bright up any day. It seems that I always running out of birthday cards and it's so nice to have extras on hand. I created another birthday card featuring Cuppie and friends from the Sweet Friends set along with the b-day sentiment from the Fresh Flowers set. I flipped the sketch and paired up the sets with some super cute new Lime Twist paper from MME. Aren't those colors fun? Want some more fun? Well be sure to play along with us for your chance to win a great TE prize. You can get all the challenge deets at Taylor's blog and at the TE Forum.

Be sure to visit the rest of the Sketch Crew to see all of their wonderful creations! We also have the honor of having not 1 but 2 fabulous guest designers joining us this week!

• Dawn Easton
  
• Jami Sibley
• Lisa Hjulberg
• Lori Craig
• Melissa Sauls
• Monika Davis
• Rachel Sztonyk
• Taylor VanBruggen
• Tracy Clemente
• Guest Designers: Iwona Palamountain, Molly Joly

Thanks for visiting and Have a Happy Friday!!!

iCopic Weekly Challenge #29 - Coloring with Red

Hi Friends! So excited to bring you my very first iCopic DT project. I am delighted to be a bi-weekly designer for iCopic and look forward to bringing you all the latest goodies from iCopic. Let's start the week off right with another fabulous iCopic Challenge. This week's challenge is to use reds for coloring. Lipstick Red (R29) was one of my very first Copic markers. I fell in love with that vibrant and rich color and I couldn't resist bringing home some friends for R29 with the wonderful prices they have at iCopic.

The inspiration for today's card came from my darling niece and nephew. These fun loving twins will be graduating from Kindergarten this month and will be off to the wonderful world of First Grade in August. I wanted to let them both know how proud I am to be their Auntie, so I created this card for them. To start I stamped the sweet little apple image from the My Silly Valentine set by Lawn Fawn on X-Press It Blending Card Paper with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink. I began coloring by laying down my base color for the apples using R24. I chose my light source to come from the right and began shading the left side using R27 and using R24 to blend. I finally added my deepest shadow using R29 and blending it out with R27 and then R24. The following pictures layout the 3 step coloring with red process. My final coloring was done on the leaves using Y23 and Y25. I also added a little shading to my finish card around the image using Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The fabulous Distress Inks will be coming available at the iCopic store beginning this week. Woo Hoo!!! I hope you will play along with this week's challenge for your opportunity to win a fun prize from iCopic. Be sure to visit the iCopic Blog for the challenge rules and to link up your challenge creation. I can't wait to see what you create using those gorgeous reds!






Thanks for visiting and Have a Happy Monday!


Rachel's Recipe:
Stamps: My Silly Valentine (Lawn Fawn)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Copic Markers
Paper: X-Press IT Blending Card Paper (Copic) & Kraft, Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy CS (PTI) and Patterned Paper (MME & Bo Bunny)
Accessories: Circle & Scallop Circle Nesties, White Gel Pen, Sewing Machine, Piercing Tool (Making Memories), 3D Foam Tape (Best Creation), Red Brads (Creative Impressions) and Cherry Divine Twine