I wanted to share the stamp sets I bought from Altenew.. They are on sale at scrapbook.com if you want to check them out.  I love Carolyn Shores Wright stamps and found Holly House on Ebay.  I used my Poppy background stamp from Rubbernecker that I showed in my last haul…I used Versafine Onyx black ink to stamp it with and Recollections 110 lb white card stock for it cut to 5 x 7” and used a new clear embossing powder from Nuvo.   I used my Touch Five markers to color it.  I bought a set of 168 markers from Ebay for $63, as it was the only set they offered that had a lot of the lightest tones and I color with those for the majority of my coloring.  I swatched them in a book, so I can easily find the colors I’d like to use.  I also put a sticker around the markers, so I can see what the color actually is (compared to the color on the cap.)  The colors I used were 70,144,183,37,41,12,15,2,3, and a colorless blender.

I colored the lightest red tone for the entire flower, then went around the edge of the flower with the next darker shade, then the shaded areas with the darkest red, then went back with the lightest color to cover the entire flower.  That’s my system for coloring with markers, and I hope it helps you when coloring.  I usually use three shades of the same color and always color the entire image with the lightest tone first and then go back over all of the coloring with the same marker after using the other two colors.

When I colored the blue background, instead of using all of the shades of blue, I used a colorless blender to lighten certain areas to make it look like I did shading…it’s a sneaky way to make your coloring look like you worked harder than you did.

I trimmed the background on it to look good on a 5 x 7″ card…it’s 10” by 7″ and scored at 5″ to make a 5 x 7″ card.

I used a ruler to make my edges straight with the blue marker and put foam tape behind it to adhere it to the red background.  I stamped “You are Simply Wonderful” on the bottom in black ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder then heat set it.  By using this sentiment, I could stamp Happy Valentine’s Day on the inside of the card, or leave it blank.  For now, I’m leaving it blank.

I took a 1” chiffon ribbon that matched and tied it around the front panel and tied it in a bow and cut a notch out of the ends of the ribbon by folding it in half and cutting toward the bow on an angle.  That gives you (I think) a fish tale edge, but I might be making it up.

The stamp I used on the back of the card came from Stampanda.  I went through Groupon to get a discount code for Stampanda, then went to the Stampanda site and found their square self inking address stamps, and looked for the one that I liked, and changed it from an address to “Made for you by Sandy Parker”…  Hope that helps if you want to make one for yourself.  I think it ended up being around $20 to make it.

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