Another Inspiration Card

This evening, dear readers (all 3, maybe 4, of you), I bring you a card of which I am quite proud. The main reason I'm proud is it came out exactly like I'd hoped it would! *pats self on back*

Here is the card:


... and this is what inspired it:


This poor, unsuspecting woman was accosted at last week's farmers market by Yours Truly, wielding the ever-present camera. I asked her if I could take a picture of her shirt, because I wanted to make a card based on it. I also told her that I'd bring it this weekend (WHAT was I thinking??!?!?!), and she promised to stop by and inquire about it. No pressure.

So, what do you think? Hmmm? Since that's all I have for you, I thought I'd draw this out and show you the process. You may leave now if you'd like, but I did work really hard on this whole documentation thing, so if you'd maybe just look at a few of the pics, I'd be most grateful. Of course, I'd never know if you bailed ... just sayin'. /whine

First, I looked through my bazillion stamps and could not find ANYthing that resembled the orange flower on her shirt. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. But then I spotted my Fifth Avenue Floral set and opted for the petaled flower. I figured I could use PTI Poppy for the orange/red color. First failure: this is an outline stamp. Boo. Ah, well, I'd stamp it in Memento Black and color it in with the PTI-identified Copic colors for Poppy. Easy. Here's the stamped images:


Next up - the leaves. I pulled out the SU Paradise set (a bunch of leaves) and chose one of them to use with PTI's New Leaf ink.

BUT FIRST! I needed to mask the flowers, so I stamped the flower 3 times on a piece of printer paper and cut them out. THEN I started stamping the leaf image. Here are the masked flowers:

I figured 3 was the right number, and I'd just move them around as I progressed down the card stock. Here I demonstrate my incredible dexterity by holding down two of the masks while simultaneously stamping the leaf image:

Mmm-hmm. Right. Here you can see several of the leaves stamped over the masks:


... and here is the piece after all the leaves were stamped:

Next, I wanted to sponge So Saffron between the floral images, so I re-used the masks. Here you can see where I've started to sponge the yellow around the top left flower image:

I worked my way down the piece, then went back and added a few touches of More Mustard. Here's the piece with all the sponging done:

Then it was time to color the flowers. I looked up PTI's Copic colors for Poppy, and I had ... none of them. Unbelievable, since I thought I had almost all of the colors. Failure #2. But then I decided I could pick out my own stinkin' color, and I opted for R05. I used it to color the flower images, then I went back and added a few strokes to add some shadow.

Not bad ... not bad ... The last thing I did was take my Memento marker and colored in all the tiny circles in the center of the flowers. Done.

Deep dark secret: I don't buy into that whole "you need a shade up and a shade down" for every Copic color. Nope. Because you can go over the one color again and make it come out darker, so why buy the next darker color? Seriously. By the way, I have no plans to take the Copic Certification class, so I can do anything I want. Hmph.

And ta da! The finished card:


The sentiment is also from Fifth Avenue Floral, and this may be the first time I've used it.

Okay, now that the card is finished, I must say I have no plans to make any more of them. That was a lot of work, and not the best design for mass production. I know when to quit.

Well, tomorrow I have my Friday market, and I hope to actually sell something. Saturday is supposed to be Hazy, Hot & Humid, of course, so I'll enjoy tomorrow, if only for the lack of HH&H. Gotta look at the positive aspect of things. ;-)

Thanks for stopping by!