One cool cat...umm...bear!

Hello and Happy Friday! I don't mean to wish time away, but I'm so glad it's the weekend again! I want to show you the card I made for the Copic Creations Challenge. The challenge is to use your cool copic markers! I know, they're all pretty cool, but we mean the cool colors! You can find details and lots of inspiration on the Copic Creations Blog!
You can play along (until Feb. 14) for a chance to win 25 pounds from Lili of the Valley!! That's a great prize!
I have loved Lili of the Valley for awhile now, since a friend (Michele) told me about them. I just had to have a couple of James the Bear! I know everyone is so 'over' making winter cards, but I just had to ink him up!

My cool colors are BG10, BG15 and BG49 for his scarf and hat.
This will be my last post as a member of the Copic Creations Team. I just love all the girls and Mary G is a great leader. I just seem to have trouble keeping up! A big MWAH to the whole team and thanks for everything! Love ya!
Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs, Cheryl
Oh, one more thing, you have one more day to comment on THIS POST for a chance to win a card (made by me) and a Magnolia stamp. It's my mini blog candy, just for fun!

Copic Creations with SPARKLE

Hello! Well, I tried to use my snow day wisely and did get quite a bit done. I thought there would be more time at the end of the day to just color imges! Sadly, the day was gone too quickly! JustRite is generously sponsoring our Copic Creations Challenge (sparkle) with a great prize! It's TWO stamps sets and a storage product! There's also some copic glitter pens being given by Marianne Walker! We'd love to have you enter your creation!

I used Christmas ornaments to create my vintage looking card. I used glitter glass to give that old fashioned sugared look to the ornament. I also used Diamond Stickles instead of my usual Stardust. It reflects in golden colors.

My ornament is colored in the BG family and the tans are E42, 43 and 25.

Please head over to the Copic Creations Challenge Blog to see the prizes and the other designers fabulously sparkly examples to inspire you!

Thanks for coming by! Have a wonderful day!

Cheryl

Sweet Holiday!

Hello friends and thanks for visiting! We have a new Copic Creations challenge for you! Mary posted it yesterday on our Blog so you can find all the details by clicking the link! Our sponsor is Whimsy Stamps and you can win a great gift certificate the their store! Our challenge is to really focus on those hightlighting skills with your copics by making a definite light source on your image. Not sure I'm saying that well! I sometimes hightlight where I feel like it! I think it's very important to have light, medium and dark contrast when you color an image. But, to do it really correctly you have to think of a light hitting your image from a particular vantage point and let that drive your coloring, shading and highlighting. So this time I really focused on light from the upper right and how the image would look. What you see is the result.

Once again I chose colors from the Basic Grey (Olivia) collection to drive my coloring of this Christmas Cupcake by MelJen from Whimsy. If you visit the store take a look at all her designs. They are wonderful images to color!

All that's left to say is that I used the following copics to color my image:

Pink/red R30, R32, R35, R37 and R89

Greens G40, G12, G82, G94 and G99

Yellow Y21 and YG24

BG10 on the swirls and T1 and T3 around the image.

Just want to say sorry about the poor photos-seems like it's always dark now!

Have a wonderful day! Make it a great one!

Cheryl

Old Oak Tree for CCC!

Hi! Thanks for visiting my blog! I made this 5.5" square card for the current Copic Creations Challenge.
The challenge is to pull out those Es and color something brown OR to make a scene card. Mine's a bit of a scene but I was mostly focused on coloring brown. Our challenge this time is sponsored by a great craft store~Make "it" Crafty and its owner Zoe! The prize is some copic markers and a few of her digital images!
My Old Oak Tree is colored in E31, E42, E35, E25, E29 and E49.
The surrounding sky is BG000, BG10, BG72
The pumpkins are from I Brake for Stamps-Pumpkin Harvest. It's a set of three connected pumpkins that I used HERE. I just colored the two smallest and cut them out and overlapped them. I used Y17, Y19, YR16, YR18 and E08 to color them.
We hope you'll have some time int he next two weeks (by Nov. 14) to show us what you can do with browns (or a scene)!
I appreciate that you took the time to stop by today!
Cheryl

You can still comment on the SHAKER CARD below to win some shaker windows, some paper and a Tilda stamp or two! You have until Thursday, Nov 4 at 9:00 pm! THANKS!!

Blobby Takes the Cake!

Hello! Here is a digital image from Pink Cat Studio called Blobby Takes the Cake. I love images like this because you can just go crazy with any colors you're in the mood to work with!
It is the card I made for the "end of October Copic Creations Challenge. The challenge posed to us this time by our illustrious leader, Mary was to use a blender technique that we like. I picked this Blobby to work with just so I could make him plaid! Now I want to make him pink plaid, blue plaid, orange plaid, and purple plaid. It's so fun! Color and shade the image first. Then make sure your blender is juicy so the color removes easily and smoothly as you 'draw' your lines.
I used one of my new Spellbinders' dies to make a round card as the perfect frame for Blobby. t would be pretty easy to make a bunch of these!
My greens are YG13 and YG17. I'm afrad I've lost track of the other colors since this was a post on the Copic Creations blog at the end of last week.
We hope you'll create something with your copics and blender and share it with us by October 31!
Details on the blog linked above!
Thanks for the comments on the wine box below. You can still comment to be entered for some goodies (until Saturday) !

We had book club at my house last night and then did some crafting after school today so as I write this I'm very sleeeeepy!
Hope you're having a great week!
Cheryl

Copic Creations challenge 36

Hi! for the next two weeks you can enter our challenge! What is it, you ask? Well, it's to get out your copics and show us how you color ORANGE! I know, you wouldn't have guessed it from my image, but I HAD to have her!

This is Betty Belfry! Isn't that a great outfit she has on!? She is from Tiddly Inks and they are our sponsor for this challenge.

I used Y35, Y38, Y15, Y17 and Y18 with just a touch of E08. The 'blacks' are colored with the Cool Greys.

No EP on this one except for what I made using an older SU background stamp! The tag is SU too.

So glad you could come by today! It has been one heck of a week for me and I'm not getting much creating done.

BUT, please come back because I'll have my lunch bag project for the Magnolia-licious monthly challenge on Saturday or Sunday!

Take care, Cheryl

Hats off to Hattie!

Hey, ghoulfriends! Back again today and this time with a new Copic Creations Challenge! This time our challenge is Shading! We are sponsored this time by Kraftin' Kimmie! She has some terrific new Halloween stamps and I see on the site she has just released more new images! This is Hattie and I just couldn't resist giving her green, ghostly skin! Shading can mean all kinds of things with copics and we'd love to have you visit the Copic Creations Challenge Blog for details (on Kimmie's prize) and tutorial links! My shading involves toning down bright colors. I colored her dress in some of the Blue Violets, but didn't want it bright and wanted to deepen the shadows (she is a ghoul after all!). To do this I added some C7 and C9 to the deepest areas of shadow.

Well, thanks for visiting today! I so appreciate it! And, won't you consider joining us for the Copic creations Challenge in the next two weeks? We'd love to have your work of art added to the blog!

Cheryl

Bon Voyage and Backpack! (and Copic Creations Challenge, too!)

Hello, friends and welcome to September! I've been working on this for a few days and at the end had to rush to have it ready. What else is new? The September challenge is brought to us by the talented Becca Feeken. The mission she gives us is to use a stamp from the Bon Voyage collection at Magnolia-licious and make a suitcase or backpack to go with it. I made the backpack from the excellent tutorial on Splitcoast Stampers. So much fun!! You can go HERE for more inspiration!
Have you seen the wonderful, colorful backpacks out there?! I almost couldn't resist buying one! How fun to choose papers and patterns and make your own! I started with the backpack and was guided by the Stampin Up dp called Woodland. It has Kraft and Wasabi with Chocolate and cream. I love it! I used the Emblem stamp from Magnolia-licious for a tone on tone look.
I also used a PTI set in SU ink to make the plaid on the Kraft card stock.

I know you won't be surprised to read that I colored Tilda with copics! I used E000, E11, E01 and R30 for her skin. E42 and E43 for the tans. To darken the shoes I added some E25 and blended with the lighter browns. For her had and dress I used G40 and YG17 to get a match for Wasabi green. I also added some E42 to "dull" it a bit. Similar colors were used on the sign and suitcase on which she is sitting. So stamps used are: Emblem (736), Suitcase and sign (#625) and Traveling Tilda (#377) which is not currently in stock. Please email Diana to see when more might come into the store.

My card fits the Copic Creations challenge (#34) for the next two weeks-using copics to color folds and pleats. I think so many of you do this as well as or better than I, so please join in the challenge! You can find all details here at Copic Creations. Mary always posts a tutorial or two along with the challenge! She's great that way!

A couple more photos and then I'm off! It's early to bed because it's a work day tomorrow! Oh, one more thing-the main panel is on dimension pieces so the takes pulls out easily for a specil sentiment! (there's nothing on it yet, though! LOL!)

As always, thanks so very much for visiting!

Have an excellent day!

Cheryl

We're getting Reflective

Hello friends!
It is the 15th so time for another Copic Creations Challenge (number 33)! Please visit the blog for all the details and to see the great samples made by Mary's team. Our challenge (and yours) is to color an image with copics and color a reflected image. The teams interpretations are very different so the challenge is more open than you might first think. My stamp is from Rubbernecker. Who doesn't love the scenes that Kittie747 makes?! When she made one with this sailboat I HAD to have it! It hasn't seen ink very often, but was perfect for making a reflected image.

Knowing I wanted to show a reflection, I stamped the image high up on white Neenah classic paper. I colored the image in my normal way. I'm so sorry but I don't have the colors written down for this one. Then I used my cloud template for the sky. Finally, I had to get started on the reflection.

I used the links to Maryanne's tutorial on reflections that Mary had sent us. I'm sure they're linked in the Copic Creatins Blog post. Maryanne tells how to make a blurry image below for the reflection. I did that and then went over the 'water' with by blues, going right over my images as well. Finally, I did some blurry outlines in black marker.

I wasn't crazy about it so I added the ribbon to mask it a bit! After I went away from the card awhile and came back to it, I didn't think it was too bad! :)

Hope you like it and will join in the challenge! There is a great prize being given by Suzanne Dean! You'll want to check it out!

Have a great day!

Hugs, Cheryl

Copic Creations challenge 32!

Welcome! We are back with a new CC Challenge! You can find all the details on our BLOG HERE, but I can just tell you that it's ALL ABOUT READING!! I got my love of reading from my mom. She read to us and when I was a child she joined a book club for me. I loved when those books came in the mail and I still have some of them today! As a teacher, I can't count the number of times I've said to parents, "The MOST important thing you can do at home to help your child is to READ TO THEM!" (And,as an aunt who loved reading to nieces and nephews, IT'S FUN!) The copic creations team has really rocked this challenge! Please check the blog for ALL the projects!
'NUFF SAID! Mary G put us onto this children's book illustrator who promotes reading AND puts FREE pictures to color on the internet! These are the images we used to make our reading themed projects!! So cool!

I used a Criss Cross card to hold my bookmark. The bookmark is the same as one of the "luggage" tags I bought at Office Max. In fact, there's one sewed inside to make the bookmark extra sturdy. The card stock is Apricot and the dp is from a DCWV pack-Raspberry, I think. The swirls are from a PTI set. The sentiment is from SU, and the Almost Square Box is from HERE.

On my BookWorm I used E42, 43, E25 (glasses), R30, R21, R22, Y35, Y15, YR16, W1, W3, and W5. I also used some stitching and, of course, stickles for sparkle!

Thanks for coming by!

I will have my Magnolia Monthly challenge (of the month) card tomorrow. You can read the details on the challenge given to us by Mindy RIGHT HERE.

Along with my card I will have my Blog Candy winner! Please come back tomorrow!

Wishing you a joyful day-make time for a little reading, if you can!

Cheryl

CCC-29-Animals!

Hi friends! I hope you had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend! We did! It's already June 1 and time for another Copic Creations Challenge! Our challenge is sponsored by Hambo Stamps this time and we were sent an ANIMAL image to color! Obviously, they is not the challenge for realistic coloring! These bright birdies were fun, fun, fun! Copic Creations Challenge Blog has details for you along with the wonderful samples by the rest of our team. And here's the link to HAMBO if you want to see all their whimsical images!

The close up! I kept track of some (but not all) of the the colors I used. I'm sorry!

I used BG10, BG11 and BG72 for the blue bird.

The green one is YG21, YG23 and YG25

Y04, Y11 and Y35 for the yellow. The birds are surrounded with shades of Warm Grey. That's all I've got!

On Saturday Dave and I had some family over for a hot dog cookout. We sat out by the fire until 10:30. On Sunday we went to our friends' (Lisa and Kevin) cabin for another cookout. We got to meet lots of their friends and family. All are really great people! On Monday my DH was the Commentator/Announcer for the Memorial Day parade in Dunkirk! So, a great weekend!

Hope YOURS was as well!

Thanks for coming by today!

Cheryl

Copic Creations Challenge 28

Hello and isn't it a terrific day! Today I have the card I created for CCC28-Monochrome coloring.
Our challenge this time is generously sponsored by the MULTI TALENTED Katie Cotton. She is the owner of Paper Makeup Stamps. She shared some of her images for us to work with AND she is giving a $35.00 Gift Certificate to her store! WOW, great prize! Thanks, Katie! To read all the details, please visit our Main Blog-Copic Creations Challenge.
My card uses paper from Basic Grey (archaic) and My Mind's eye (small pad from Michael's)
AND Iggy Iguanadon from Katie's store.
Iggy is colored with Warm Grey markers. I only have every other color in the grays, so I used
W00, W1, W3, W5, W7 and W9.
I chose these after view Katie's two videos on coloring monochrome-they are linked on the Copic Creations blog by our Leader, Mary. Thanks, Mary! Definitely videos worth viewing!

AND I cannot fail to mention that my friend, Lisa, whom I've written about here is on Katie's design team! Her blog is definitely worth a visit!

Thank you for all the great comments yesterday! The blog hop explosion boxes were fabulous! I'm afraid mine was rather plain by comparison! I've taken it back to "the workshop" to do a little tweaking on the inside scene! Will post when finished!

Weather is awesome here! DH and I have already walked around the lake this beautiful morning! (After French toast for breakfast I needed to walk!)
Have a wonderful day!
Cheryl

Heard the News?

I guess the "News" is that I finally have a blog post done! I've missed you all so much and am so thrilled to have some new followers! I've posted a few photos because I just could not get a sharp one-maybe the dark papers? I don't know. This is Love News Tilda from Magnolia-licious! I just love HER! This the first time she has seen ink.

The card is alos for TWO of my design team "assignments" for May. I had to do two at once because this has been a busy week! Saturday is the 3rd annual Spring Fest of Stampers gathering in Amherst, NY and I had to finish all my projects. So.... this is a FABULOUS sketch by our own Becca Feeken for the Magnolia-licious design team and for all of you! Please go over to OUR BLOG to see the "real" sketch-I took a little creative license with it! (sorry, Becca!)

And, it is also for the Copic Creations Challenge starting today, to color something DIFFERENT than paper with your copics. See what I did? I used my copics to color some flowers I cut on my Cuttlebug from Tim Holtz Grunge Paper. My first time and I want to do more with it! Anyway, our sponsor this time is Maryanne Walker herself, our Copic guru or is it Goddess? Please check out the CCC BLOG for details on the prize! Details will be there sometime today (Saturday May 1)

I'm sorry, but with everything going on I had to clean up my table and did not get the colors jotted down. If you really need to know email me and cherylrowley@rocketmail.com and I will do my best to come up with them!

Papers are La Romantique from Graphic 45.

Thanks so much for coming back to the Cottage~!

Have a great Saturday! I know I will!

Cheryl

Chibi Cupcakes and CCC26

Good morning! Mary revealed another Copic creatios Challenge yesterday! It's to color black hair with your copics. Not an easy thing for me, but sometimes you gotta tackle something like that! Here's the result: This is Chibi Cupcakes from The Greeting Farm. This is a digi image but they carry rubber too and The Greeting Farm is offering a nice price to one lucky winner! You can read more details on the Copic Creations Challenge Blog

My card uses My Mind's Eye paper from the Quite Contrary collection and Paper trey Ink ribbon. Chibi's hair is colored with all the cool grays that I own! Co, C1, C3, C5 C7 and C9! I like to start light with my coloring and add darker and darker colors until I get what I want.

No sure what's up for the weekend, but Monday is the Magnolia-licious Blog Hop-we are showcasing the stamp "Right through my Heart" and Diana has a contest going on right now if you use that stamp and show her your card.

You can also check out details for being a guest designer for Mo for the month of May Here are the DETAILS.

Well, we have had some beautiful weather lately in Western New York! I guess that's changing for a couple of days, but I don't card, cuz we have next week off for spring break! I'm sooooo happy about that! So much to do!

Find something to be happy about today!

Cheryl

Copic Creations Challenge 25-

FLOWERS! What could be better for spring!? Nothing, I think! So here is a flower from one of my many PTI sets! I used R20, R24 and R27 to color the petals. The center is Y21 with touches of Y24 and the leaves are G20, G24 and G82. I colored this flower like one I saw on Debbie Olson's blog (Thinking Inking) awhile ago. She does a fabulous job of coloring so I CASED on this one!

I have tomorrow off so I plan to be back with my Magnolia April sketch card AND the winner of this card for the previous Copic Creations Challenge.

There's still time to comment today!!

And don't forget to head over to our CCC blog to check out the beautifully colored flowers! We hope you'll join us for the prize from Paper Garden-It's 25.00!

Okay, guess that's it for this post! Have a sunny day!

Cheryl

Copic Creations Challenge!

Mary, our VERY talented leader asked us to make a card using one or more of the copic techniques we enjoyed over the last year! You see, it's the Copic Creations Challenge ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY! The rest of the gals had a post earlier on Monday and this is my project. I went for the caucasian skin and blond hair techniques because I was dying to ink up this cutie and her honey jar! I stamped the jar and masked it to stamp Tilda. It was very easy to line up the images! The paper is once again the Bo Bunny Jazmyne line as in yesterday's post.

YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE PRIZES MARY HAS COLLECTED! AMAZING! YOU CAN READ WHAT THEY ARE AT THE COPIC CREATIONS BLOG. We do hope you'll enter!

and BE SURE TO TRAVEL TO SEE ALL THE SPECTACULAR PROJECTS 'CUZ WE ARE ALL GIVING AWAY OUR CARDS/PROJECTS! oh MY!

JUST LEAVE ME A COMMENT TO WIN THIS PIECE! (Winner to be chosen around April 1st and announced April first when our next challenge posts.

The close up! So cute I don't know how I'll give it away, but I WILL! (BTW-It's really a 6x6 card front (or frameable)-I didn't have 12x12 paper in the right color cardstock to make a 6" card!

Colors used:

E000, E01 and R20 for skin, cheeks

yellows Y21 and YR24

suit YG91, Yg93 and then blended with YG0000

Hair Y21, Y24, E33 and touches of E27

Purples V0000, V01, V15 and V09

I thought maybe this was a better photo of Monday morning's post-acetate. Please scroll down and leave a comment on the post below to win a card and a Tilda stamp! Winner will be chosen on Sunday morning (3/21)

Thanks!

Okay, this may post Monday evening ET instead of my planned Tuesday because my fingers hit enter too soon!! What ever happens-enjoy and I hope you have time to jot a comment on both posts!!

Wednesday-a St. Patty's Day Tilda!

Thanks for reading all this! Cheryl

CCC23 A WEE BIT O' GREEN!

Hello friends!! Our challenge for the next two weeks is to get those copics out and color something GREEN!!

Our sponsor is Our Craft Lounge and they are giving THREE OCL sets to the winner! Wowee! That's a great prize!

The set I was asked to work with is Sea-son's Greetings! Cute turtles, fishes and sentiments in a Holiday Theme. I know a turtle isn'st a FISH, but I love this little sentiment!

When I finished the card I wished I had sewn the edges-oh, well, next time I guess.

I have my sewing machine handy, but I'm not used to planning my cards with sewing so I forget.

The green copics I used on my turtle are YG01, YG25 and G03. There are stickles on my little ocean scene that aren't showing in the picture.

We hope you'll play-you have two weeks and you can use any images, just show us some GREEN

Please see all details and the rest of the design team's work HERE. Good luck!

Back tomorrow with my card for the Magnolia-licious March sketch card!

Have a great day! Cheryl

Two Projects today!

I don't usually do double posts but this is a busy week! Lots to make and show so I'm glad you came by! If you started here and don't want to miss anything you may want to visit our excellent Suzanne's blog now. If you've arrived from the superior Sharon you're doing great! I'm at the end of the hop so feel free to check out the link to Diana's wonderful store on my sidebar! Our Design Team blog hop today is to feature some pop up cards we've made! So here is mine. It is called a Spring Card and the directions (easy!) are in the Resources section at SCS! I've seen so many terrific cards made with Tilda with bow and I had to get in the act with Spring colors! My lavendar colors are BV000 and BV02 with a little darker lavendar that I can't remember right now. The pinks are R81 and R83. Her sleeves are YR000 and YR21. Her hair is E33, YR21 and E25.

This second card is for the Copic Creations challenge. This time we are sponsored by DZDoodles digital images and I love my basket of eggs! I have quite a number of birdhouses, nest and eggs that I decorate with in the spring. My favorites are actually the "natural" ones so that's the look I went for. I used the nasty rag on my eggs and added some dots for the look I wanted. But, our challenge is...

to color embellishments! Yep, with our copics! I colored some PTI twill ribbon (it was cream). I also colored the blue buttons and even the twine in the white button. They are all colored with BG72 and the buttons have a mottled apearance like the egg. The sketch is a MoJo Monday one.

This card says Spring to me and it could be for Easter, too!

I will have a few more pictures of this card tomorrow with our Mo's digital Pencil blog hop! We are celebrating 1000+ members on PCP and I don't think you'll want to miss the event!

If you have any questions about these cards, please don't hesitate to ask!

Have a great day! I will-it's our Winter Break from school!

Cheryl

Forgot to add, YES, I will be giving SOMETHING away. Not sure what, but definitely a Maggie card and a Maggie stamp!

Just leave a comment! I love,love,love reading them! Maybe youi can tell me the weather where you are today! (We're weather buffs here!) THANKS!

Copic Challenge-Fur!

Hi there! Welcome to 2010! DH and I did nothing exciting-ate dinner out and went to a movie. I'm prposting so I'll let you know what I thought of it next time!
The Copic Creations challenge #19 is to color FUR! It's a fun challenge and after you've looked around we hope you'll enter your furry card to win the prize! Please take a look at the Copic Creations Challenge Blog for the other designers' cards and I'm sure Mary has linked something from Maryanne on coloring fur if you need any advice on how to get started!
The prize? It's sponsored by Squigglefly this time and the winner gets their choice of THREE images from the store!

Iused a bit of the "Nasty Rag" technique, but I'm afraid it doesn't show well. Maybe if you click to see him close up. Anyway, I started with my lightest brown and worked my way to the darker colors. Just before the darkest brown (E59) I wet my rag (actually a white face cloth that I use for this technique, it's not "nasty" yet) with blender solution straight from the bottle and blot the image to remove and "mottle" the color a bit. I didn't want to overdo it and remove too much. Finally, I added my darkest color.

Here are the browns I used: E34, E43, E55, E25 and D59.

You have TWO weeks to make and enter a card! We hope you'll join in-what better way to start the New Year!

Cheryl

CCC-Pine

I just love this image and haven't used it enough! Here are two of the mice from House Mouse designs bringing home the Christmas tree!
Our challenge is to color Pine and we would love for you to join in! Mary has linked up Marrianne Walkers guide to coloring pine. It is much more realistic than mine, but it isn't as hard as it looks. Please visit the Copic Creations Challenge blog for all the details on the challenge and the PRIZE!!
In case you are wondering,

I used YG21, YG93, YG95 and YG97 for my pine.

Have a terrific Tuesday!
Hugs, Cheryl