Hollyhocks Birthday

I seriously need some birthday cards! Every time I need one, I'm having to make it right then, rather than pull one out of my stash! I don't mind doing that, but it would sure be nice to have the choice of whether to make a new one or not. ;)

That said, I would have made this card anyway. I wanted to try out my newly-learned Copic skills. My DH liked how I colored before the class, and he thinks this is about the same. I, on the other hand, do see a difference, but maybe that's just because I know that this image was colored very deliberately.

Usually, when I've used Copics in the past, I pulled a bunch of markers out randomly and started coloring. I never put thought into color families because I didn't understand the Copic numbering system. Now I do, though, and it makes it so much easier when I'm coloring to know exactly what I want to use and why. For example, rather than testing every single green in my collection to find the right one to use for shading the leaves, I made my choice based on the Copic numbers. Of course, I still tested that marker before committing it to the image, but it ended up being the right choice. I did the same thing for the flowers, too. Yay! (Now I just need to fill in the gaps in my Copic collection so that the orphan markers I already have will have families to belong to, too.)

Isn't this image pretty? I've used it one other time, but that time I colored the flowers yellow so my coloring mistakes wouldn't be so noticeable, and I also only used a small portion of the image so I wouldn't have to color it all. This time I could be fearless! ;) I was even able to make the blue around the flowers fade into the bg rather than only drawing a line around the image. (If the bg behind the image looks pink or purple, it's not. It's actually white, but for the life of me, I couldn't get it to white without messing up the entire pic.)

Oh, right...there is more to this card than the colored image, isn't there. I zig zagged in black around the pink dp, lifted the image off the black mat with crimped cs, then put two pieces of ribbon under the lower right side of the image and added silver half pearls to each one. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from Flourishes Botanical Bookplates stamp set.

On the inside, I sponged Victorian Velvet Distress Ink around the inside edges of the die cut, then stamped the Hollyhock image off the right side of the sentiment panel in the same color so it would fade into the edge. The sentiment is from Flourishes Kids at Play stamp set.

Before I go, I wanted to share one more photo.

I often like to add a little something to bows on gifts. Last night I made this flower, added a sparkly gem in the center (after airbrushing it with my Copic airbrush!), layered several different flourishes behind it, then hot glued it to the bow on this gift. It's really this vivid in real life--practically blinding--but I love all these colors together. And, doesn't the bow look happy! :)

Thank you for stopping by! Have a great day!

I'm entering this card in the following challenge:
Flourishes Summer Lovin' Challenge (FTTCApr13) I used the color pallet from the inspiration pic.

I'm entering the birthday gift bow in this challenge:
Simon Says Stamp...Happy Birthday :-)

~Hugs,

Stamps: Hollyhocks, Botanical Bookplates, Kids at Play (Flourishes)
Paper: Splendid (Authentique)
Ink: Copics; Memento; Distress
Dies: A2 Matting Basics
Accessories: Twill Ribbon; silver pearls; sewing thread
Size: A6 (4.5" x 6.25")

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