Garden Dirt: Merriest Berries, Copic Marker Swatches for Power Poppy Stamps

 

Deck the Halls with Copic Coloring!

Way back in 2017, I taught a little local Copic Marker and colored pencil class using Power Poppy's Merriest Berries stamp. 

I remember it fondly because the class fell smack-dab in the midst of the Christmas crazy time and everyone came to class completely frazzled. Who still has gifts to buy? Who really should be home baking right now? Who still doesn't even have their tree decorated?

Coloring can be very calming. While it won't decorate the tree for you, color can soothe your cares away.

So this month, when the tasks feel overwhelming, tell that creepy elf on the shelf to go bug someone else. 

Sit down and color for a while. You'll be glad you did!

By the way, my name is Amy Shulke and I'm the illustrator and art instructor over at VanillaArts.com. You can check out some of my previous articles on the Power Poppy blog here.

My specialty is hiding secret special colors underneath my Copic blending combinations in a process called Underpainting. This is how I create extra depth, dimension, and realism in my coloring projects and class samples.

Let's color festive & dimensional holly leaves!

Today I'm sharing that original version of Merriest Berries with you. Even though I colored it long ago, it's still a project that makes me smile.

You can find the Merriest Berries digital stamp in the Power Poppy shop here but don't over look all the other beautiful holly images Marcella has created. My Garden Dirt recipe can be used on any of them but if you're looking for a quick, last-minute Christmas project try the digital version of Hollyberries. It's sweet and simple!

Garden Dirt? Yep, that's how I think of the secret colors I use to make Power Poppy images really pop. It's the secret underpainting that you'd never know was there if I didn't share the secret here each month.

Under-painting and over-painting?

Hang on, this holly recipe is much easier than it sounds!

Now keep in mind, I always color dark to light. ALWAYS!

Start with Copic B34 and lay that color into your deepest holly zones. Any place that something overlaps a holly leaf or where the leaf is coming out of the cluster? Those are great candidate zones for the magic blue marker.

Then use YG67 to flick over the top of the blue, coming out slightly beyond. You're only 2 steps into the underpainting process and already you should be seeing two distinct greens. The blue under YG makes a deep and shady green. It's a shade of green Copic doesn't even make!

Then finish the blend with YG63 using it to smooth everything out.

Once dried, I kiss the points of each holly leaf with a bit of Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencil in PC1030 Raspberrry. This hint of deep red adds interest and complexity to an otherwise standard looking green leaf. Red draws your eyes and makes the leaves something special.

So that's the Garden Dirt for December:

• B34 as underpaint for YG greens
• Raspberry pencil as overpaint, decorating the edges

Together this four color blending combination will make your holly very festive!

Want to color Merriest Berries with me?

As I mentioned, I colored this image quite a while ago. I don't even have a recorded class version to share with you.

But I didn't want to leave you hanging without some help!

I've put together a super-helpful Merriest Berries coloring guide for Copic Marker at a beginner to intermediate level range. This booklet has an easy to follow recipe guide, a color map, the original photo references, plus lots of step by step info.

It's everything but the stamp... which you can instant download here.

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Holidays too. 

I know it's standard and almost trite to wish each other peace and joy during this season... but this year? Boy, we really need it. I hope you have the best celebrations possible.

And I'll see you back here on the Power Poppy blog in January for another Garden Dirt color tip!

Christmast Remix: Berry Sweet Holiday + Giveaway Winners

Yayyyy!! It’s finally here — no, it’s not Thanksgiving or Black Friday or even the end of the release — it’s the day we can show off one of my favorite classic stamp sets: Berry Sweet Holiday.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. To start, the polymer set, Berry Sweet Holiday has 13 images: two focal images, four sentiments, and 7 little accents to help make your cards really sing.

The digital versions of these images are really fantastic too. Merriest Berries digi download gives you THREE versions of the core image, with and without a candy cane at the center. Sometimes a gal just likes to have options.

And that cute little wreath!!! As I was drawing it, I was even like, “I love you, little wreath. Thank you for popping out of my head and onto this paper.” Find this download in Wreath: Felt Leaves and Fruits.

This classic card made by Bloomie alum Tosha Leyendekker shows how you can color Merriest Berries/Berry Sweet Holiday in any color scheme! Isn’t it darling in pastels with lots of sugary glitter?

Or look at the work of one of our newest Instant Gardeners, Gloria Stengel, who was inspired by the colors of peacock feathers for her festive creation.

But wait, there’s more! Brand new cards by our designers that will show you even MORE ways to use these stamps. And did I mention that they are ON SALE?

Allison Cope

Barbara Walker

Gloria Stengel
Julie Koerber

Lisa Johansen

Nancy Sheads

Stacy Morgan

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THE WINNERS OF A $15 GIFT CODE from our COMMENT GIVEAWAY are...

** Lynne K **

** Grammy’s Greetings **

 ** Francis Valensiano **

** LaWanda Batchelor ** 

Ladies, Congratulations!! Please send an email to bloom@powerpoppy.com and I will send your shopping code to you right away. 

Dear folks, thank you from the bottom of my heart to all who lefts such lovely, encouraging notes on our blog and Facebook post. I read every single one and absolutely LOVE to know what my designs mean to you and our crafty community. ❤️❤️❤️ ~m

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See you back here tomorrow for a REALLY COOL new digital set!

Merriest Berries Digi is HERE. A new designer is TOO!

Howdy do, friends! We’re taking a break from our regular Tuesday’s Hues to Use inspiration (you can always check the archives if you’re in need of a fresh color palette or to upload your card).

Today we’re letting the Instant Gardener design team loose with our brand new digital stamp set, Merriest Berries. You may have gotten a glimpse of it when Kathy Racoosin of the Daily Marker posted her take on the opening day of the Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge (woo hoo!), or maybe you saw my version during this weekend’s blog hop and giveaway ... but folks, YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN’ YET!

But before we share the list of inspiring designers participating in today’s celebration of Merriest Berries, I have some HUGE NEWS! We have a new member of our Instant Gardener digital team to introduce. This is a woman whose work struck me the first time I saw it over three years ago — and she has continued to captivate me with every papercrafting project she digs her glitter-speckled fingers into. Let’s give a joyous welcome to our newest Instant Gardener, Elizabeth Zaffarano.

You can see Elizabeth’s work on her colorful Instagram feed @saffronkingfisher, where she shares process shots that are as beautiful as the finished product, explains her thinking behind her design direction, mulls over color combinations, and shares the pretty objects and influences that inspire her always outside-the-box ideas. Elizabeth is reviving her blog, where you can see lots of her past projects: https://saffronkingfisher.wordpress.com

Elizabeth says:

Hi there! I’m so delighted to be joining Power Poppy as an Instant Gardener! Power Poppy’s very first release of Azaleas and Springtime Love got me hooked on coloring, and I haven’t stopped since! I mostly color with Copics, but dabble in colored pencils and watercolors too.  And I love to transform my coloring into cards, boxes, envelopes - the sky’s the limit! 

I live in San Diego, California with my husband, where he graciously shares the dining room table with all of my paper crafting endeavors.  

Yay, welcome, Elizabeth, we have LOVED (and been in awe of) your Inspire Me Monday guest posts, and now we get to have you around the Power Poppy scene a lot more often.... everybody wins!

So let’s go see what our designers have come up with using Merriest Berries... and I’m going to warn you, each one is as unique as can be. You will not see the same color scheme used twice!! These ladies are POWER PLAYERS, I tell you!! I marvel at their creativity and I know that their hard work and practice coloring and working with patterns and layouts through the years has paid off - and it can for YOU, TOO! Take some inspiration today and keep on honing your skills, my dears, because you too can get to this level.

Sharing cards today, we have:

Broni Holcombe

Nancy Sheads

Rhea Wiegand

Jessie Banks

Jennifer Dove

Elizabeth Zaffarano
Barbara Walker

Enjoy all of the eye candy, and don’t forget that this set comes with THREE versions of the berries and ribbons, along with sentiments. This is an image you’ll really enjoy coloring, and as our designers show us, it’s easy never to make the same card twice!

In case you’re wondering... we will be releasing NEW clear stamps for Fall and Holiday in October — STAY TUNED FOR DEETS!

Inspire Me Monday: Digital Sentiment Manipulation

Hello folks — If you are looking for our Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge + Giveaway post, please CLICK HERE.

Be sure to come back and read this OUTSTANDING tutorial on digital image and sentiment manipulation by the Bloom Brigade’s Tosha Leyendekker.... FILLED with information and step-by-step screen shots! xoxox, ~marcella

Hello creative peeps!!  Welcome to this week's Power Poppy Inspire Me Monday!!!  Tosh here, and I'm going to share with you how I manipulate digital sentiments, using Photoshop, to fit with the layouts I design with Power Poppy's incredible digital images.  For my first card, I used the new digital set Cherries and Berries.  

This is a long post, so I hope you bear with me.  I have a second card to share at the end too, in which I used a VERY NEW digital image called Merriest of Berries, along with the sentiment from Power Poppy's Hollyberries Digital set.

So, lets get right to it.  I Loved Marcella's new cherry clusters and thought it would be fun to combine both sentiments that come with the digital set Cherries and Berries.  So here's how I got started:

First, open all the images you want to use for your project.  I chose the cherries, and the two sentiments.  I then click on the middle yellow dot at the top left of the image, to bring them to the bottom of my screen and get them out of the way, leaving only the cherries on the board.

See that little pink eraser on the left?  Right click on the image and then click on the Magic Eraser Tool at the bottom of the pop-up screen.  Now, lets have some fun erasing!!  Just click on all the white space around your cherries that you want to be erased.  You'll need to click on the small areas too.  That way the only part that shows up when you create your design is the image itself.  No background noise.  Do this with each of your sentiments also.

Now, you're going to want to create the base for your image.  Start by clicking on File at the top, then "New", then "Blank File".

I want my card front to be a vertical rectangle so I'm making my base rectangular.  I chose 5" for my width, and 7" for my height.  My next card is square, so I just made the dimensions 5"x 5".  It's easier when getting ready to print it out.

I brought my image into the my blank base by clicking on the cherries at the bottom of the screen and dragging them into the frame.  Now, you can rotate, enlarge or shrink them by first clicking on the square arrows on the upper left hand side.  I've darkened the area by clicking on it and you can see a solid arrow pointing to it.

See the boxes around the image?  By hovering over one of them with your mouse, you can rotate it any direction.  You can also shrink or enlarge it.  I like to only use the corner boxes to shrink or enlarge because it doesn't distort the image.  Just hover over it until the arrows show, click and drag larger or smaller until you get the size you want.  I kept the cherries in their original size and just rotated and each time I wanted to add a cluster, I clicked on the cherries at the bottom of my screen and drug them up into the frame, and, once again, rotated them until I got the look I wanted.

There are times when you may want one image in front of the other, and it may automatically go behind.  That's easy to fix.  Just right-click on the image you want to manipulate and click "bring forward" or "send back".

Here's a look at my final cherry arrangement.  Once I was happy with how they were arranged, I moved on to the sentiments.  Now we're finally getting to what this tutorial is really about.  

I started by bringing up the first sentiment to the main screen by "double-clicking" the one I want.  I then made 4 duplicates by clicking on File at the top left, and then duplicate.  You're going to need 4 duplicates because you are going to be doing a lot of erasing.

Back to our eraser.  Right-Click on it and click on "eraser tool" at the top of the "drop-down" menu.  Next you will want to decide the size of your eraser.  We want to cover fairly large areas at a time, so I would suggest making the eraser a bit larger.  But small enough to fit in the tight areas.  If you are uncomfortable using a larger eraser in the smaller areas, you can always resize your eraser at any time.  Look at the top left of the screen.  See the brush stroke? Just go to the right of that and choose the size of the stroke you want.  Mine was set at 99 because I was erasing the entire bottom portion of the image, leaving only the word "You".

Then, using the highlighted crop tool on the left, crop your sentiment as close to the edge as possible.  It just makes it easier to lay out.

Do this with each panel of your sentiment.  Leaving only one section, or word, on each one.  I separated "You", "really are the", "sweetest" and "thing" so I needed 4 duplicates.  I then went on to do the same to the other sentiment.

It looks like this before you crop them.  Once again, I click on all the yellow dots, and take them off of my main screen so I just have my cherry base up.  Click and drag up each part of your sentiment one at a time. 

Now I can play around with each section of sentiment...enlarging, shrinking, rotating...whatever you want to do to fit your layout.  (use the square arrows, at the top left of the vertical strip, again) I enlarged the word "you", and shrunk some others.  I also rotated the word "with".  Just have some fun.

Once I get my sentiment layout the way I want it, I save it and insert it into a new Word document.  I can resize the entire panel there the way I want it.

That's finally it for the tutorial portion.  Here is a look at the final result once again.  I loved the look of the black/white with the bold red cherries standing out on their own, so I decided not to color the leaves or any of the sentiment.  Marcy does such an incredible job with her designs, that they are gorgeous even without coloring!

And here's a look at a card I made with the sentiment overlaid over the entire image.

I did everything the same as above, only I lightened the image first.

Click on "Enhance" at the top, scroll down to"Adjust Color", then to "Color Variations".  I made sure the "Midtone" button was highlighted on the left, and just clicked "lighter" about 6 times.  I then created a New Blank File, and drug the image up into it.  You can then lighten or darken it even more by clicking on "Adjust Color", then "Adjust Hue/Saturation.  Slide the "lightness" bar according to how saturated you want the image.

Erase the sentiment the same way you did before, and just lay it over the image any way you feel fits.

Here's a close-up:

Whew, that's it.  I hope I've explained it all clear enough, and that you get an opportunity to try manipulating some digital sentiments of your own.  Thanks for sticking with me!

  Happy Stamping!

Daily Marker Coloring Challenge, Blog Hop, and GIVEAWAY!

Hello, hello my dear friends! I’m a bit late in joining along in Day 2 of the Daily Marker’s NEW 30-Day Coloring Challenge... so let’s just call this: Day 2/3. :) I want to join the chorus of voices encouraging EVERYONE to try to make time to color this month, even if for just a few minutes. That dearest of dearhearts, Kathy Racoosin of The Daily Marker started this marvelously uplifting event, which has no structure, rules, or fuss — the only point is to give yourself the gift of time to do this thing that you so enjoy.



I have to say, spending a few hours coloring in the garden this morning is surely just what the doctor ordered for us, as we await news on our little puppy Tibbs, who had to spend the night at the animal hospital yesterday. It seems he swallowed something he wasn't supposed to — at least that’s what they are examining as I type this. Last night we got to spend a bit of time with the pup, and he was definitely feeling cheerier after some fluids and antibiotics. We knew when he wanted to chomp on our cheeks that our little puppy was making a turn-around.

So, my coloring queens, let’s get to the fun ....we debuted a new digital stamp set called Merriest Berries that was drawn expressly with Kathy in mind, as she LOVES a good cluster of holly. I upped the ante a little bit, adding mistletoe to the holly, and I sure hope you got to see what Kathy came up with for the beautiful KICK-OFF post for the 30-Day Coloring Challenge... here’s a peek!

Isn’t that OVER THE TOP AWESOME??!! Look at how Kathy treated the bow with those wonderful stripes, enhanced the white stitching with incredible shading and allowed those Merriest Berries to bubble over with holiday fun. I was so tickled to see what Kathy made with this set — THANK YOU SWEET KATHY! I’m doubly stoked to see what YOU will do with it, hopefully inspired by all of the coloring challenge beauty that will surround us all month long. See below for how you might win this set, along with a gift code to shop at Power Poppy!

I was hoping to be able to join in on the blog hop yesterday with so many other fabulously NEAT companies, but I got sidetracked with things around here, and just this morning spent some beautiful time in the garden painting this new image...

The digital version of Merriest Berries comes with three different options for the cluster of berries and ribbon. Kathy Racoosin chose the “bow” version for her creation, and I decided to go with the “candy cane”. There is one more version with just dovetailed ribbons, as well as a sentiment with “Merriest Wishes”!

I’m still not quite ready for traditional Christmas colors, so I decided to color my berries and ribbons in  a palette inspired by my garden Zinnias! Pink and Orange do not fail you, my friends!! They offer such a zingy, zesty happiness, and that is definitely something I wanted to bring into my world today. So... 

I printed my image at 35% opacity so that the outlines were very light. But then I went back in with my gouache paint and spent lots of time darkening and gradually deepening the shadows to really help those berries and leaves pop.

Here’s a detail of the berries, you can see how each holly berry is multiple shades of yellow, orange, pink, and red, and the white area is a spot that I did not paint at all, but left blank. If you do not trust yourself to leave an area blank while you're painting, a trick I learned back in art school was to dab rubber cement with a fine brush in the areas you want left white (essentially, masking them off). Finish your shading with watercolors and gouache, and then roll off the rubber cement — it works like a charm — if you can still find rubber cement. hehehe — do they even still make it?)

Anyway, painting this lively cluster really lifted my spirits. I decided to give it a handpainted gingham background in citrus yellow, and handlettered a sentiment to send my Merriest Wishes to all of YOU today!

Daily Marker Blog Hop list  

If you encounter a broken link, please refer to the full list to get you to the next blog.

The Daily Marker

Mama Elephant (Road Trip 9.9)

Stamping Bella (Road Trip 9.23&24)

Gina K Designs (Road Trip 10.6&7)

Waffle Flower (Road Trip 11.1)

Jenn Shurkus (Road Trip 11.11&12)

Neat & Tangled  (Road Trip 11.18) 

Concord & 9th (Road Trip TBA)

Power Poppy (Road Trip March, 2018) YOU ARE HERE!

Lawn Fawn (Road Trip TBA) 

WPlus9 (Road Trip TBA) 

Debby Hughes (Road Trip completed) 

Jennifer McGuire (My favorite OnLine Card Class is OCC partner)

Kristina Werner (My favorite OnLine Card Class is OCC partner)

Heather Ruwe (My favorite OnLine Card Class is OCC partner)

POWER POPPY GIVEAWAY

I’m giving away the Merriest Berries Digital Stamp Set — PLUS a $30 shopping code to Power Poppy! Please leave a comment below by Sunday, September 10, at midnight, and I will pick a winner and announce it here on my blog on Monday, September 11th. The full list of ALL winners from the individual blogs will be announced HERE at the Daily Marker on Tuesday, September 12th. (check each blog for the specifics of their giveaway).

Thank you so much for coming by today, and pardon for the delay in my post. Enjoy your Labor Day weekend, and I so hope you’ll take time to color in the challenge. All you have to do is color, but if you want to REALLY have fun, you’ll want to share your card on social media and hashtag: #thedailymarker30day