Day 2- IO Sneak Peeks

Welcome to day two of the Impression Obsession sneak peeks. I am not sure that my picture shows some of the sparkle I added to the card, so I added a close-up picture:

Instead of using plain white embossing powder, I mixed some white ep (which really makes the snowflakes pop) with some Iridescent Sparkle ep (which makes the snowflakes sparkle). I also added a ton of rhinestones to the flakes as extra bling.

The snowflake (C10003) is another design by Hannah Davies, and the saying is once again from the All I Want for Christmas clear set (CL304). Isn't that a practical set?

Are you too anxious to see more? How about a link to the new Impression Obsession catalog with all the new images? You can find it here.

Want to see more design team samples? Check out what Need some purple inspiration? Check out what Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, and Julie created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments will enter you to win a $25 IO gift certificate. You can find more information about that on the Impression Obsession blog.

Want to play along? You can find all of the information Impression Obsession blog.

Also, you have a chance to submit your own work for a chance to win another $25 IO gift certificate. On July 21st, Shirley will be posting contest information on the Impression Obsession blog. As a heads up, the theme will be to make a card using only Impression Obsession stamps (in case you want to get started now).

Impression Obsession Sneak Peek Week

Hello! This is the week of the Craft and Hobby Association conference where companies unveil their latest and greatest products. Impression Obsession has a ton of new images to showcase as well as brand new stamp designers to introduce to you. All this week, the Impression Obsession design team will be posting sneak peeks of the new products. I hope you will stop by often to to take a look!

For my first card, I would like to show you a design by new stamp artist, Hannah Davies. When I saw Hannah's drawings, they instantly spoke to me. I just love their whimsical quality. I chose to use her Reindeer (F10007) image as well as one of the newer Cover a Card backgrounds (Stripes and Dotty Circles, CC094). Finally, I added a saying from the CL304 All I want for Christmas clear set.

One of the things I would like to talk about with my card is trying to get the lines to match up over the various colors. First, I stamped the background onto my kraft notecard. Next, I stamped the background onto a large sheet of red cardstock. I used a larger piece of red paper so that I could cut it down smaller and line it up to what I had stamped onto kraft paper. For the saying, I once again stamped my red paper with the background and punched a circle where I wanted the saying to go on my card. It was a lot of stamp aligning, but I liked the finished look. Here is a close-up of the patterns:


Are you too anxious to see more? How about a link to the new Impression Obsession catalog with all the new images? You can find it here.

Want to see more design team samples? Check out what Daniela, Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Julie, Kathy, created. Be sure to visit the various blogs since leaving comments will enter you to win a $25 IO gift certificate. You can find more information about that on the Impression Obsession blog.

Also, you have a chance to submit your own work for a chance to win another $25 IO gift certificate. On July 21st, Shirley will be posting contest information on the Impression Obsession blog. As a heads up, the theme will be to make a card using only Impression Obsession stamps (in case you want to get started now).

I hope to see you a lot this week. It should be lots of fun!

Non-Craft Post- Harry Potter

I don't often post non-craft related things, but I had a chance to do something special yesterday, and I thought I would share. Okay, I mainly wanted to show my mom my day. :)

I was lucky enough to win a trip with a local radio station to go to New York and see the US Premiere of Harry Potter. Yeah! The big surprise for me? I had no idea that I could get to NYC by bus in less than four hours. Who knew?

We were escorted to the side of Avery Fisher Hall (Lincoln Center) and were allowed to watch the reporters and interviews. The red carpet made a u-turn, and we actually walked the second half of the red carpet where there weren't any reporters:

Once we were inside, we could see the start of the red-carpet and the fans that had waited to see the celebs. It was nice to have a birds-eye view. Plus, the glass toned down the sound of screaming teenagers:

We found that our seats inside were row 8 on the right-hand side. I was worried about seeing a 3-D movie that close, but it was an awesome vantage point when the actors, director, producers, and screen-writer came out before the show to talk about the films.

I call this one "Yeah Daniel Radcliffe!:"

Another pict of the pre-show talk:

I was probably the most excited about seeing Alan Rickman. Someone recently told me that the actor who plays Neville grew up to be quite good looking. Boy, was she right.

Overall, it was very exiting to see the premiere. The movie has a ton of action, and the crowd was really into cheering and clapping throughout the whole show. So much fun!

Moxie Fab Card Challenge

Today I want to share a card I made for the Moxie Fab Stamp It! challenge. I chose to use a butterfly by Magenta that is definitely one of my favorite stamps. I colored it was an assortment of Copic markers that matched my new Basic Grey Out of Print line of paper. I love, love, love that collection of paper! To finish the card, I added a saying by Impression Obsession and some jewels by Memory Box.

Here is different view of the card so that you can see that it opens differently than the cards I normally make. You can also see from this view that the wings pop up:



If you want to play along with the challenge, you have until midnight on July 13th to enter a card.

Another Color Challenge

I thought I would post the card I made for the latest summer card camp challenge. The interesting thing about this one is that I colored the chilis primarily with the peach and terracotta colors with only an accent of the red. However, they look primarily red to me. I don't know if it is because red is such a dominant color that a little goes a long way or because I added red accent pieces behind the images that may have really brought out the red color. I guess I am just interested in the whole color theory aspect of it! Also, on my monitor at home the darkest green looked really dark, on a different monitor, it looks more emerald to me. Oh well!

For the card, I used the Impression Obsession Chilis (D2213) in black Memento ink and colored them with Copic markers. I then added some paper by My Mind's Eye and the What's Cookin' saying (A5437) from Impression Obsession.

I find that I am really enjoying these color challenges!

Here is a picture of the colors we were supposed to use:

IO Challenge- Hello!

Today the Impression Obsession challenge is all about saying hello. I like hello cards because they allow you a lot of freedom. You can stamp just about anything, add the word hello and it works!

I have had the Beach Bottle (E2415) stamp for a while, but I have never used it. I wanted to make sure that I had a chance to use it before summer was over, so I knew it was going to be the image for my card. I stamped the bottle onto white paper with black Memento ink, colored it with Copic markers, cut it out, and layered it onto my card. I thought that my sand and sky needed a little more interest, so I stamped them both with the Cover a Card Canvas (CC073) and then edged them with Distress inks. Finally, I added a saying from the All Occasion I clear set (CL306).

Here is a close up of the bottle and the canvas background:

Want some ideas for saying hello? Check out what Daniela, Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, and Kathy created.

Want to play along? You can find all of the information here, and you could even win a $25 Impression Obsession gift certificate!

Color Challenge

I was lucky enough to win a Summer Card Camp class, and the challenge this week is to make a card featuring the following colors:

I lked the challenge because they are colors that I don' usually use together.

To make the card, I used a definition and Floral image by Hero Arts and outlined the flowers with Copic Markers. I then added a saying by Impression Obsession.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend!

Copics 3

I am frequently asked about when I am going to teach a Copic 3 class. Well, the answer to that is next Monday. If that is a bit too short of notice (I just can't imagine why), I will also be teaching it on Wed, July 20 and Sun, August 14.

I took my Intermediate Copic certification last month in Ohio. The class focused more on theory than technique, so I needed to come home and practice what they taught. I also needed to break down the information into smaller, more manageable pieces for the classes I would then teach. For my Copic 3 class, I will be teaching three-color blending, how to work with those tricky red markers, how to move beyond blending and into adding contrast to your work, and how to shade with grays or complementary colors. Copic has come up with a new equation for selecting colors, so we will be talk a lot about how to choose colors. Of course, we will also make four cards to practice all of those topics (pictured above).

Crazy for Copics (Copic 1). Is a prerequisite for the class, but Copic 2 is not. A list of markers to bring is listed on Angela's class page. I hope you can make it!

On an unrelated note, I was benind the Joy Car yesterday (always happy when I see it), and I noticed that someone had run into the back of it. I wonder if that took away some of the joy. Ps...the bubble machine in the back was not turned on at the time I took the picture. :(

IO Challenge- Summer Challenge

Time for another IO Challenge. This time the theme is "Hot Fun in the Summer- Summer Fun Greetings." I love this challenge because I have been making lots of summer cards lately. Instead of making a "hot" card for the summer though, I went with a cool summer interpretation.

For my card, I stamped the Polka Dot Fish (D2195) onto white cardstock with Versafine black ink and colored the image with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. I then added a saying that can be found in the Angelfish clear stamp set (MC183). I often pair Leigh Hannan's beach images with the bubbles Cover a Card background. I thought people might be getting tired of me using that background, so I used the Cover A Card Fizz background instead (CC013). I really liked how it paired with the fish stamp.

Need some summer inspiration? Check out what Daniela, Deborah, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, Julie, and Kathy, created. Want to play along? You can find all of the information here, and you could even win a $25 Impression Obsession gift certificate!

Impression Obsession Goodness

Hi guys. There are a couple of Impression Obsession events at Angela's Happy Stamper that I would like to share with you. First of all, I will be teaching a Leigh Hannan beach class next Wednesday, June 22nd from 6:30-8:30pm. I posted a picture of three of the four cards we will be making using some of Leigh's quirky and fun summer images. The class focuses on a lot of coloring and will be using Copic Markers, Cover a Card Backgrounds, Distress Inks, Inspirations metallic paints, Faber-Castell markers, Prismacolor pencils, and Gamsol. I hope you can make it.

Second, have you heard that Mitra, the owner of Impression Obsession, will be doing a free demo at the store? The demo will be held on Thursday, June 23rd from 6-8pm and Mitra will show you how to combine Cover a Card stamps to create gorgeous backgrounds. She is even offering trunk show discounts on Impression Obsession products. It is always fun to meet stamp company owners in person, so I hope you will stop by to say hello to Mitra...and learn a little something too!