holiday card & a copic tutorial

Today is World Card Making Day, so I thought it would be appropriate to share a holiday card I made recently.

I found this adorable stamp from Stampendous, Penguin Games, at Michael's a while back. I have several friends and family who had their first child this year, so I thought this would be perfect for holiday cards for them. I've had the DP (Jolly & Bright by Heidi Grace) in my stash for a while, and decided to base my colors on it for a non-traditional holiday card.

The image was colored with copic markers (I used RV10, R46, YG11, Y38, W5, W7), and then I added some stickles to the pompom on the hat and the lights. I stamped an extra baby penguin, and put him on popdots for some dimension. While I was waiting for the stickles to dry, I bent beading wire into the shape of the string of lights. Once the stickles were dry, I put crystal effects on the lights and used this to hold the beading wire in place. I love how the crystal effects makes the lights look like actual glass bulbs. :)


I dug into my stash of bling for the pretty gems. They were brads, but the prongs on them are too big to lie flat, so I snipped them off with my crop-a-dile, and attached them with glue dots. Much better!

Copics are great for coloring on more than paper. The gems weren't the right color for the card, so I took my RV10 and YG11 copics, and colored each gem to match the colors used in my image. Neat, huh?



Want to see something else neat? You can also use your copics to make custom colored ribbon WITHOUT the mess you get with reinkers or other methods of coloring ribbon.

I wanted to use satin ribbon on this card, but the red I had didn't go with the card. I used white ribbon and a R46 copic to color it the shade I needed to match the card.

To do this, place your ribbon on a piece of scrap paper so you don't get ink on your stamping surface. Then, using the wide nib, color your ribbon in a straight line. Repeat until no white is showing.

Now flip your ribbon over, and do the same thing to the back of the ribbon for even coverage.


Note that your color might look a little splotchy at first, but will even out once it is dry.

The ribbon will dry in seconds and be ready to use. And see how little mess it leaves? Gotta love it! This will make your ribbon just slightly stiffer than it was before, but otherwise there is no difference.