Valentine's Card with Chris

I challenged myself to use several supplies that I have been neglecting like my Copics and Spellbinders.  I started with a Dustin Pike image and printed it twice.  I decided that I would do a paper piecing, Copic coloring, use my Spellbinders, and make a homemade bobble head (can’t wait for Kim to get those new bobbles). I’ve been reading up and watching a lot of Copic videos and love the Copic FAQs section on the Design Team’s Blog. and To try and improve my shadows I decided to use the tip of putting an object to represent the sun. Hopefully you can tell that I had one in the upper left side of the image. I used C1, C3, C5, and C7 for the elephant. Again I experimented and colored darkest to lightest; I usually do the opposite. The toenails, eyebrows, and hearts are RV04 and RV02. I colored the second head and heart using the same colors. To shadow outside of the elephant, I started with T5 in the darkest areas like under his body and his left ear. I laid that down in short strokes. I then used T3 in a circular motion and extended the shadow around and blurred the T5 line. I repeated this a bit further out with T1 and then used the blender pen to blur the last line.

I cut my base card from white cardstock to be 4.25 x 5.5 inches, scored it with Scor Pal and then cut a pink mat from Core’dinations paper. I used my Spellbinders Impressabilities Flourish and ran the paper through my Cuttlebug. A bit of sanding with my Tim Holtz sander and the design popped up. Before gluing it to my base, I took a piece of black ribbon from my stash, tied a knot on the left side, Scor-Taped it to the back of the pink paper, and glued it to the card base.

Using my Spellbinders Deckled rectangle (2.75 x 3.5 in.), I cut, embossed, and sanded a gray Core’dinations mat. I cut the elephant using the “out of the box” method and a smaller deckled rectangle (2.25 x 1.75 in.). I turned this rectangle so the longer edge was along the bottom of the elephant and marked a line just below its trunk on the left and ear on the right. Then I cut slits so I could slide the elephant’s head outside of the cutting area of the nestability. I inked the edges with Tattered Rose Distress Ink and used my Scor-Tape to adhere him to the gray rectangle and Scor-Tape to adhere the gray mat slightly over the ribbon and onto the base.  I then took a pop up to lift the second heart and colored its edges with RV04 so the white didn’t show.

Again digging into my stash I found a small frame under which I put a scrap of cardstock and wrote my sentiment. Both got glued down with Glossy Accents. (Love that stuff!). To finish the card I needed to pop up the second head piece and I knew I wanted it to bobble. So taking 2 strips (10 inches by one-half inch) I glued one end of the two strips at right angles to each other and kept alternately folding the strips over each other until I had a paper spring, which I glued (again glossy accents) from the middle of the head on the card to the middle of the back of the second head. I hated the white being such a stark contrast, so once again I took my C5 copic and stuck the point end in between each fold to shade it gray.

Last but not least I stamped the back of my card with an Image Trees Handmade stamp.