Simon Says Fantastic Florals

Hello everyone!  Today's card features Copic Coloring and I'm going to enter a few challenges with it.  The Fusion has a "Pretty in Pink" Theme this week, Simon's Wednesday Challenge is "FantasticFlorals" theme featuring Altenew, and the Altenew February Inspiration Challenge for this month features Ivory with Pink, Green and White. For my Ivory, I used Altenew's Spicy Yogurt Card Stock for my card base.  I love this cardstock and the last time I got some, I purchased 50 sheets of it.  I'm glad, because it's still out of stock and it is a favorite for me.

I have been practicing with my Copic Markers, trying to get more comfortable and like anything else in life, practice is helping me to get better.  I want so much to portray how I see the petals in my mind and while I am not there yet, I'm improving each time I try so don't give up if you struggle with the same thing. We're always our own worst critics.

I really wanted to color my images using Copic Markers today, but I also really love the way Gold Heat Embossing looks so I was just careful not to run my marker over the embossed edge with my markers when I was coloring. I'm also using my Copic hex chart that I got from Sandy Allnock and I find that to big a big help in selecting colors that work together. The marker numbers just never work how I think they should and the Hex Chart is a visual reference that makes it easy. You can find Sandy's chart here. There's a colored in version than you can print, but you have to know the color will only be as good as your printer. There's also a blank version that you fill in as you get colors. There is no need to have all the colors.  I love pinks and purples so those are the colors I have the most of but yours might be green or blue.  It's a downloadable file so you get it right away.


My colored in hex chart is printed, put in a sheet protector and stored with my ink swatches using the same system Jennifer McGuire uses with the coin pages.  I made my own files for the swatches on my computer but Jennifer has downloadable ones on her website. Since I don't buy or want to buy every kind of ink out there, I found it easier to make my own.  I have 36 Altenew Inks, 36 Distress Inks and about 46 Papertrey Inks that I have swatched. I also have some of the full size ink pads from other companies, but I enjoy the smaller size as long as I can keep the lids on them.  Those are the inks I use 90% of the time. In fact, I recently got a new organizer for my ink cubes. It was more expensive than what I wanted, but I really love this.  With my old system I was constantly knocking over my ink pads and dumping them into a trash can so this has been awesome. I'm using a similar system with my Copic Markers since I have both Ciao and Sketch Markers and I've grouped them in color families.  For the inks, each drawer holds 24 inks so right now I have 2 drawers for each brand and the extra drawer holds my most used tools.  At some point I may have to give up that drawer to more inks but for now, I'm good.

As a little side note, I got to meet Jennifer McGuire at CHA.  I couldn't believe it when I saw her standing there, not at a booth where she was doing a make and take or otherwise with a group. She was standing alone, waiting to see her friends (Kathy Racoosin and Kristina Werner who I also got to meet) as she had just arrived at the convention center and they had a designated meet up spot. When I walked up to Jennifer and introduced myself I put out my hand and she insisted I give her a hug instead of a handshake. It was a long hug too! I've had a little bit of communication back and forth with her before this, but she totally remembered who I was. I had even brought a gift for her in case I happened to run into her and I must say, it made my trip!  She is every bit as warm and lovely as she seems in her videos.  Even my husband knew that meeting Jennifer and Yana in person was really the only thing I hoped to achieve at my first CHA. The only person I wanted to meet but didn't was Heidi Crowl. Another time I hope!  

Altenew's Beautiful Day is one of my favorite sets and is much loved and often used.  The size of the blooms makes them a good choice for coloring.  Since I'm trying to familiarize myself more with my markers I used a couple of different color combinations today but I put them away before I remembered to write down the colors.  For the leaves, I colored them using G21, YG63 and G46.  So far, this is my favorite for green leaves and such so far.

The Fusion Challenge has a theme this week of Pretty in Pink and since I couldn't decide which pink I wanted to use, I did a few of these blooms. For these, I used RV91, V93 and V95. Red Violets seems to be my preferred color palette which is not a surprise to me.  These colors remind me a lot of Lavender Moon from Papertrey Ink, which is actually a pink tone more than a purple one.

I have several other projects to work on today so I better finish this post and get moving on to something else but I think it's highly like that you'll see additional entries for the Altenew Challenge before the month is over.  Have a great day everyone, and thanks for stopping by! I apologize in advance if this post seems rambling - it does to me too!