Just for Laura

I have a scrappy friend who lives in Belgium and is at University studying to become a Kindergarten Teacher.  She has a huge following, especially on YouTube where she has more than 8500 subscribers for her more than 120 videos.  She is only 18 years old but has been making cards since she was 12 years old.  Her's was one of the first YouTube videos I watched when I started making cards this past Spring and I've followed her ever since.

Now that my friend has started college, there are many projects to make as part of her education and she doesn't have as much time as she did before so she is taking a break from weekly videos and blogging.  I still haven't mastered shaker cards which was the first video I saw her do. But I still remember the sound of her voice as she told us on the video that the card she had made was going to be the one she gave to her parents because she adored the cute little critters. Subsequent videos with critters are among some of the best she has done and she is the queen of shaker cards!  She is also known for her love of and ability to duplicate soft colors. 

Because of her love for critters, I wanted to create a Christmas Card for her this year that had little critters in it.  I'm actually hoping to make another one with critters for my grandsons this year.  I have a cute idea for a little deer.... 

I started by stamping the little penguin on Canson 140# Water Color Paper from the WPLUS9 Winter Pals Stamp Set with my lightest gray ink, Smoky Slate, and heat embossed him with WOW! Pearl Embossing Powder. When you use the Pearl, it picks up the underneath color - so paper color or ink color.  With dye inks, you have to be really quick with the embossing powder, but you can do it.  I just stamp each item one at a time so I can get the embossing powder on there and then I heat set everything all at once.  For the little bear and the sled, I stamped in Sahara Sand Ink with WOW! Pearl Embossing Powder as well.  The little pond was first stamped with Versamark and then heat set using Iridescent Sparkle Embossing Powder. I also went over the little pond with a swipe of Versamark so it would take the Iridescent Sparkle Embossing Powder over the whole surface to make it seem icy.  I used the companion dies for all of the cutting.  I detest "fussy cutting". Some people actually think it is therapeutic, but I am not one of them. 

Once I had all of my Copic coloring finished and everything cut out, I used Simon Says Stamp Surf Blue Card Stock to cut Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle panel for my card front.  I stamped the "Merry and Bright" from the Mama Elephant Jingle Greetings Stamp Set and heat embossed it using WOW! Metallic Platinum Sparkle Embossing Powder.  The Platinum color is a bit warmer than Silver.  This Mama Elephant handwriting belongs to one of the owners of Mama Elephant and it is my favorite!  I have several Mama Elephant word dies in the same font.   

I still don't feel very comfortable with Copic Coloring but I think these little critters are pretty passable. Copics are another medium that you have to learn to walk away from for a bit to see how the color comes out.  Since they are alcohol based, they dry pretty quickly allowing the color to absorb into the paper.  I used C1, C3, C5 & C7 to color the penguin and W1, W3, & W5 for the bear. Surprisingly, I did not use any black on the penguin except for a black glaze pen on the eyes. 

For the white parts of the face I used a tip to tip technique using a colorless blender with C1 for a minimal amount of gray shadow.   I used clear Wink of Stella on the white parts after he was colored.  When I first started the penguin, I was pretty sure that I had ruined him with my first strokes of the gray, but it came out alright in the end.  Copic Markers come in two types -- Sketch and Ciao.  I have all Copic Ciao Markers but I see most people using Copic Sketch Markers.  I do not know what the difference is.  Some people used to say that Ciao Markers couldn't be refilled, but they can, so I still don't know the difference.  I've had my markers for several years so I guess it just not that important to me to know the difference.  Way back when I got mine, I got what was recommended by a couple of guys that were Certified Copic Instructors. I don't use mine often enough to feel the need to know.  I much prefer watercolor for most of my images but I couldn't get these little pals colored in a way that I liked, so I switched mediums.  

The theme this week at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge Blog is "Let it Snow" and I'll be entering this card.