Creative Confetti: Color Your Image on Colored Cardstock

Hello! I think this is my first time hosting the Creative Confetti Challenge. I wanted to inspire you to great heights, but I have been distracted with a visit from my adult children. My son came for the long Labor Day weekend, but my daughter came for a WEEK! Plus, my college-age son started online classes this last week. I have been enjoying the "kids" and not spending as much time in my studio.

However, I hope that you enjoy the challenge this week. I had fun making the samples!

HOW TO PLAY: Stamp or print a Power Poppy Stamps image onto COLORED CARDSTOCK!  Then, color away! Use ANY color cardstock, as long as it's NOT white.

On to my creations! 

The project that started me thinking about coloring on colored cardstock was this class from Vanilla Arts called Illustrated Monarch. 

The class was to color the Monarchs and Milkweed image onto tan cardstock. I had a lot of fun coloring on the tan paper with Copics and Prismacolor pencils. 

The tan cardstock was light enough that the Copic markers looked fine, if muted, and the colored pencil looked AMAZNG!

So...I thought...what OTHER colors could I print onto and color?!?

I chose a few images to print onto a few colors of cardstock. I found that if I wanted to color an image onto very dark cardstock such as black or navy blue, I would have to somehow trace the image with a white pencil or use a similar technique. The printed image did not show up quite enough to allow me to see the lines, especially on a detailed image. Also, Copic markers are too transparent to show up on super dark cardstock.

I asked my artist daughter about using colored paper and she said the standard colors she used were white, off white or cream, tan, and gray. But, I was sure that light blue, pink, even red would work! I tried a few different papers and colors and learned lots of things!

This is another example of playing around before you start an actual project. Be prepared to "waste" a little printer ink and a few sheets of cardstock! It's worth it to experiment!

I learned that you need to test the paper with the medium you wish to use. I printed this sunflower image from Sunflower Power onto cream linen cardstock. I had hoped to use watercolor pencils for the image, but the paper was too thin to accept the water! I also found out that while the Copics looked amazing, they "oozed" too much on the linen cardstock (no surprise there). The colored pencils loved this lightly textured paper!

In my discovery I learned that you also need to allow Copics to DRY before you can see how the color really looks on colored paper. 

I had my heart set on using Copics on this sky blue cardstock, but they wanted to bleed. Any attempt to push the color back with the blender only made a "drool" line on the paper! The paper had a bit of a rough texture, and no coating so the alcohol ink just wanted to soak in and wick out! 

The colored pencils loved this paper! And they looked amazing on the blue background! I had found my perfect match!

I printed the Chinese Lantern image onto the sky blue cardstock at about 7" x 5".  I printed the lines in pale gray as well. I colored the image with Prismacolor Colored Pencils, which worked beautifully!

I hope you enjoyed my versions of the challenge for this week! If you want to join me and show off some of your Power Poppy Projects, please be sure to share what you come up with by using the linky below! Every entry -- no matter what the week -- is thrown into a virtual hat for our random drawing at the end of the month for a $25 gift code to the Power Poppy Shop! 

Have a great week! I can't wait to see what you create! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Hues to Use -- show me some GREEN!

Hello, Hues to Use fans! Is it Tuesday already? Geez-o-Petes, it just felt like we were together yesterday! Fear not, just because time flies, it doesn't mean that we won't usher in a new color combo for you to cling to next time you need a little colorific inspiration when creating!  Are you ready?

 

This little lovely right above is something that, well, Marcy just "winged" for Kathy Racoosin's The Coloring Challenge Road Trip. If you want to see more of Marce's paintings at the event, all you need to do is click HERE. Spectacular! Truly! We felt it was the perfect dose of inspiration for this week's Hues to Use! 

SO, HOW DO YOU PLAY ALONG WITH HUES TO USE? Well, my friends, it is as easy as 1-2-3! Simply use all three colors -- green, black and white -- in your next creation and then, don't forget to link up your fine work using the linky below! Just that simple!

Well my friends, as promised, Hues to Use is getting back into the guest designer business and with it, boy do we have a treat for you! Let's all put our hands together to welcome this fine lady and hear a little bit more about herself and her design process!

"Hello, I'm Lynda! My husband of 39 years+ and I live in upstate New York. Our grown daughter lives a couple of hours from us, in Buffalo, with her husband and our two grandchildren (girls age 7 and 13).

About nine years ago, I closed the door to my rubber stamp store, The Stamp Pad, after 13 years in business. It was difficult to let it go, but it was time. My oldest granddaughter was three, and I really wanted to have more time to spend with her and my family. Shortly after, our pastor asked me if I would consider working as parish secretary, and I accepted. I loved everything about my job, and it was a piece of cake only working 32 hours a week after owning my own store and working almost double that!

Now the hubs and I are happily retired, and spending as much time as we can with our family. I created and run our church Prayer Shawl knitting ministry, and also the Card ministry. We make and send about 135 cards every two months to shut-ins, and cards to families of people who had died on the 3 month and 1 year anniversary of the funeral. We also have cards available on a rack in church for people to take, no charge, although almost everyone leaves a donation, which goes into the ministry for postage for mailing.

I have just finished a six month Dirty Dozen design team assignment at Splitcoaststampers. I am currently on the Technique Junkies design team, and the Penny Black Saturday Challenge team.

When I am not stamping, or with my family, you will find me working in my garden, reading, writing, blogging, knitting, or walking along the river trail behind our home. I also love to `tangle' (Zentangle) and am teaching myself modern brush calligraphy. My latest endeavor is Bible art journaling. My hands don't know what it is to be still! I thank the Lord for the gifts he has given me, and the joy they bring me. I seek ways to help others discover and develop their own talents and encourage them on their life's journey in any way I can.

LYNDA'S CARD

I copied the Power Poppy digital image Chinese Lantern onto green cardstock. For my coloring, I used Polychromos colored pencils, choosing three shades of green, the deep indigo blue, and white. I began by coloring most of the ‘lanterns’ with the lightest shade, being careful to leave a highlight spot, Then I gradually added the other two shades of green, and then the white highlights. I used a ‘flicking motion’ when applying my layers, so as to give the lanterns some texture and shape. 

The final step was the deep indigo blue for shadow contrast. I repeated this with the leaves and stems. For the berries, I colored them mostly white, with a little green and indigo blue for shading. I went over the image with a Micron black fine pen to bring back some of the stamped lines.

Once that was finished, I felt that it needed some additional texture and interest. With a small piece of nylon screening (from the hardware store), I sponged ColorBox white pigment ink through it, intermittently, onto the card. I buffed it out a little with tissue to dull it so that it would recede into the background and not compete with the image. I cut it out with a stitched square die.

For the phrase, I used the happy birthday from the Dynamic Duos Peonies & Tulips Power Poppy clear set. I cut the words apart so that I could use them stacked instead of drawn out. I white embossed it onto a scrap of black cardstock, then used a circle stitched die.

I added some dimension and additional interest by cutting around a small portion of the lantern and berries image and slipped the circle under the cut edges. To balance the black and white, I added a narrow strip of striped patterned paper along the left edge. I layered it onto black cardstock, then onto a white 5” top-fold square card.

On the inside, I used a lightbox to trace just a piece of the stem with two of the lanterns and three berries with my Micron pen. I colored it with the colored pencils. The verse is from the Power Poppy Short Stacks clear set, and stamped it with distress ink, layering it onto the same green cardstock. That's it! 

Thank you so much Lynda for sharing! I am actually blown away by all you do and what a beautiful thing -- to create cards as a ministry for those grieving a loss? That is such a precious use of your talent. Maybe we should all send some cards your way! Your creation is stunning and all the detail you added with colored pencils is perfection. We are so glad you decided to step into the spotlight with us this week and share your gorgeous creation!

Okay folks, now it is your turn to take this color combination for a spin! And, when you do, be sure to link up your card using our linky below! We can't wait to see what you come up with! Thanks again Lynda for guest designing! Stay tuned -- there are more talented designers set for the weeks to come! Until then, get those fingers inky and join us in the fun! 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Julie

An InLinkz Link-up

Inspire Me Monday: A Little Word Play!

Hi all and welcome to another episode of Inspire Me Monday! Today, I am going to go digital for our tutorial today and show you how you can take digital sentiments or words and make them more of a centerpiece in your stamped cards and creations.

So, let's get started! Last week for our Hues to Use, I showcased a mash-up of Power Poppy's Graceful Still Life with a word that I whipped up using PhotoShop Elements. This, below, was my card!

CARD #1 

So, want to see how I created it? I started by using a heavy font to type out the word LOVE. I used the font Heavitas and got it free here on dafont.com.

From there, I added a box around the word LOVE by clicking this icon (highlighted off to the left on the tool bar) and stretching the box to cover most of my digital canvas. After I filled the rectangle with a white layer, I added a "stroke," basically an outline by clicking on that effect that you can see  on the right-hand side of the screen. I did this because I knew I wanted my image to be framed in a way. Keep in mind, I am sharing the details for Photoshop Elements (PSE) but these tools are rather common in photo editing software. While PSE is a rather inexpensive software you buy (you can check it out HERE), GIMP is a free software that can do a lot of these things as well. Click HERE to check it out! 

Here's what the image looks like after I placed the box around the word...

From there, I opened up the branch image from Graceful Still Life and removed the background just by clicking the eraser tool on the background. From there, I started to play around with placement and layered it over top my word. 

I also realized that I didn't want my lettering to stay black, so on that layer, I changed the font color to white (simply click on the text icon, highlight the word, click on the color box down on the lefthand side, and then ink drop a new color) and added a stroke effect around the letters as well, so I would have more of an open-line look.

After I found the placement, I took the single branch, clicked on the image tab, clicked on Rotate and then rotated the branch horizontally, so that I could get a second image facing the other way...

And then, I dragged and dropped this image over my word on the other side...

Here's where the eraser tool really comes into play! After I had my branches set exactly where I wanted them, I realized that I had to use the lines of my letters as a guide to erase sections of the branch so that it looked as though my branch was falling in front of my word in some places and behind it in others. It might be helpful to reduce the opacity of the image so that you can see the letter underneath.

You can see that over the "O", I am starting to erase that layer. I also erased the part of the flower that was laying over the "V". I kept going until I had what I felt was a balance. And, when I was, I ended up printing this one my laser printer so that I could make this creation gilded with some Deco Foil. See?

From there, I colored this one up with Copics, making sure to add depth to those letters and the backdrop as well! Ta da!

HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS! While I just showed you step-by-step how to create this look, Marcella decided to share this image as a part of the Graceful Still Life set. If you already purchased this image, this file will be available in your PowerPoppy.com account, under your purchased digital downloads. If you haven't ordered this set yet, this image will be included when you order. Thanks Marcy! :-)

CARD #2

For the next creation, I wanted to use one of Power Poppy's sentiments and show you how you can take a digital mash-up to the next level. I used the Power Poppy's Chinese Lantern digital stamp set sentiment "Hi!" and blew it up so that it measured roughly 3" by 3". From there, I merged the layers and then, using the Magic Eraser Background Tool, I got rid of the white space on the inside of the word by just clicking on the inside of each letter. See?

Then, using Power Poppy's Cuppa Buttercups digital stamp set, I layered the image behind the word "Hi!"  I dragged the image of the cup a few times letting the flowers only show, making sure the flowers were behind my top layer.

And this is what my card looked like after I colored up the letters and added some accents!

And here's a closeup of the letters so you can see how I colored them up!

CARD #3

For my last creation, I didn't have to go far to find even more inspiration. I used one of the other sentiments from the Chinese Lantern Digital Set "You make me so happy." I loved the chunky nature of this image and knew I could use it in a different way as well!

So, after opening up the image in PSE, I erased the background, and then changed the color of the font from black to white. All you need to do in order to change the color is click on Enhance tab and then click on Adjust Color and Adjust Hue/Saturation...

From there, you simply adjust the lightness until you're at +100.

From there, I added a stroke around the lettering using the same effect that I did in our first card. And, here's what it looked like afterward...

While I love the look of this image as it is, I knew I wanted to layer it with a fun image behind. So, I opened up the Sweet Pea Show digital stamp set. And put it in the background. 

After I printed, I colored up the whole thing and had fun doing it! I wanted the lettering to look almost like an ombre effect. And here's a peek at how it turned out!

And here's a closeup...

And here's a peek at all three cards!

I know that some of what I shared is a little bit more on the tricky side but hopefully, seeing what's possible will help you explore your photo editing software and try new things! Layer sentiments, add backdrops, or even create your own! If you do, be sure to add a link in the comments section on this post to show us what you've done! 

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to swing back tomorrow for a whole new Hues to Use to kick start some colorful creativity in your crafting spaces!

Until then,

~Julie