Copics used: Skin tones - E11, E00, E000, R20
Aquas - BG18, BG15, BG13, BG11
Reds - R27, R24, R22, R20
Golds - Y26, Y23, Y23, E50
Oranges - YR18, YR15, YR12
Hair - E55
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Anything Goes Challenge!
Art Impressions is having an Anything Goes Challenge right now on the Ai blog! The design team are all posting some fun inspiration for you today, and I have an Ai shaker card to share using Bloomer Set (Sku #4305):
The inside sentiment is "Let's face it, Aging is a pain in the rear! Her little behind was stamped a second time, cut out and popped up on an action wobble.
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Wine Diva!
Have you seen all of the wonderful Art Impressions sets that are available at Michaels? If not, you need to head on over to your nearest store and check them out! Today I'm sharing a couple of cards made with the Wine Diva set #SC0677:
I switched up the papers a little, popped up the sentiments on pop dots and added a few enamel dots to each. There are 2 images and 6 wonderful sentiments available in this set - so many possibilities!
Copics used: Skin - E11, E00, E000, R20
Hair - E57, E55, E53, E51, E50, E18, E08, E02
Aquas - B15, B13, B11
Greens - YG05, YG03, YG01
Yellows - Y38, Y35, Y32
Greys - W07, W05, W03, W01, W00
Purples - BV04, BV02, BV01, BV00
Reds - R59, R37, R35, R32, R30
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
More Candles
I have a bright & bold birthday card to share today, using one of the new Art Impressions wood-mounted stamps that is available in AC Moore stores, More Candles:
I kept my card fairly simple (those bright papers do all the work!), just adding a scalloped die cut, some zigzag stitching and a few buttons. The finished card is 5 1/2" square. Happy stamping!
Copics used: Skin E11, E00, E000, R20
Hair - E57, E55, E53
Cake - R89, R85, R83, R81, E55, E53, E51, E50
Greens - YG05, YG03, YG01
Blues - B97, B95, B93, B91
Turquioses - B01, B00, B000, B0000
Oranges - YG16, YG12
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Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Mojo Monday #409
I am so happy to be playing along with Mojo Monday today... it's been a little while, so I was happy to have some time to make a card this afternoon - and even happier that it's a Christmas card! See that little running total over on my side bar? It's been at "7" Christmas cards for months now...so I need to get a move on. Now, I tweaked the sketch a little - sort of squashed it down to be a horizontal card, but I quite like how it turned out:
Patterned papers are Elf Magic by Bo Bunny; Stamp sets are Glad Tidings and Merry & Bright by Verve; Inks are Black, Pacifica, Topiary and Cranberry, CTMH; Cardstock is Topiary, White Daisy & Pacifica, CTMH; Enamel Dots are Cranberry & Olive Gumdrops by Your Next Embellie.
Tuscan Try-fold
I am sharing a couple of cards made with one of the Art Impressions 2015 Try-fold sets: Tuscan TF Set (Sku #4580):
I often give wine as a gift, so was thrilled when Ai came out with this set! The inside sentiment says "Wishing you everything under the Tuscan sun"
Try-fold stamps are so versatile, in that each of the three image stamps can be used individually. I stamped and die cut just the villa image to make an all occasion card below:
Have you entered our Card Set challenge yet? You've still got plenty of time - we'd love to see what you come up with! Happy stamping!
Copics: Sky - B23, B21
Villa - E35, E33, E31, E51, E15, E08, E02
Greens - YG03, YG01, YG99, YG97, YG95, YG93, YG91
Browns - E57, E55, E53, E51
Grapes - BV08, BV04. BV02, BV01
Greys - W5, W3, W1, W00
Reds - R59, R24, R22, R20
I remember the first time that I was making a Try-fold card, thinking how difficult it was going to be (NOT!) and now they're one of my favourite cards to make. The cutting & stamping instructions are all included with the packaging.
Copics: Sky - B23, B21
Villa - E35, E33, E31, E51, E15, E08, E02
Greens - YG03, YG01, YG99, YG97, YG95, YG93, YG91
Browns - E57, E55, E53, E51
Grapes - BV08, BV04. BV02, BV01
Greys - W5, W3, W1, W00
Reds - R59, R24, R22, R20
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Photographing Cards Tutorial
This is my tutorial for the One Crazy Stamper blog! I'm going to share a few tips and ideas today on taking photos of your cards. Let me start by saying that I am NOT an expert photographer! Many of my cards take hours to produce; I take pride in my work and want to show it in the best possible way, so I've taken the time to learn a few tricks of the trade. I'm going to talk about lighting, angles and editing. Funnily enough, the card I made today is one of the more difficult ones to photograph, I have an easel card to share, using Art Impressions Girlfriends - here is the finished photo:
I first want to show you my photography setup. This is my craft table, I am lucky to have it sitting next to a large, north facing window - which is a perfect location for photography.
Other than two Ott lights, I have no professional equipment. I grab a storage cube from the shelf behind me and plunk it down on my table. Then I grab a large piece of lightweight, flexible white cardstock that I bought at a stationary store ($1?) that becomes both my base and backdrop - you can see how I set it up against the cube. Because this makes a seemless backdrop, there are no corners, edges or shadows behind my cards, just a plain white background. I keep the lights always plugged in, sitting on the shelf behind me. Because everything is close at hand, my photography set up is less than a minute - no fancy set up required.
Notice the angle that I have everything placed at? I have my cards facing directly into the light coming in through the window. NATURAL LIGHT IS YOUR FRIEND! Find a spot in your home with a good supply of indirect light (direct sunlight is too harsh). Use whatever you have at hand to set your card on (chair/table/dresser). For me, the Ott lights provide an extra boost of "daylight" and mean less editing of my photos - and a lot of my shots are taken at night, so they provide my daylight. If you have a good location with natural light, you may not need lights at all. And yes, I wedge myself right up against the window to take my shots. Your light source should be coming from behind you, shining directly onto your work.
I play with them and move them around so that no shadows or bright spots appear on the card, and the light is evenly distributed. Next up: ANGLES
Take just a few extra seconds to position YOURSELF and your camera properly. The shot on the left is an exaggerated example of the photographer being positioned too high over the card. The shot on the right is simply snapped too quickly without a thought for position, resulting in a badly misshapen card. Put yourself down at the same level as your card (trust me, my chin is on or below my craft table). I look through my viewfinder to make sure that the edges of the card appear perfectly up and down. Try resting against something to help steady yourself. Make sure that you're not tilting the camera forwards or back. I take at least a dozen shots of every card, since I can't always be steady or perfectly positioned. The luxury of using digital cameras is the ability to take multiple photos in order to select a good one.
EDITING - After downloading my photos onto my computer and selecting the shots I will use, I edit them before putting them on my blog. I have used Photoshop, Lightroom and Picasa, but prefer to use a free online site called Picmonkey. I'm going to keep my editing tips brief to keep this post from getting too long!
Here is what I do after opening my photo:
1) Crop - Get rid of excess space around your photo, I leave a little bit to frame my card.
2) Exposure - I play with Brightness and Highlights to make my card as bright as possible.
3) Colour - I use Saturation to intensify colours when needed, and the temperature button allows you to warm up or cool down a photo. Only minute adjustments are needed. Sunny/snowy/cloudy days all have different effects on your photos so this is a great way to compensate for odd colour casts on your photos.
4) Click on the 2nd icon which is Effects - I usually add "Dark Edges" to my photos, to add a soft grey halo around the outside.
5) I use the butterfly icon to add my OCS watermark to my photos, or you can use the font icon to type your own watermark.
6) Finally, I resize my photos, making the largest side of my photo 800 pixels (this is adequate for a blog, make it 1200 or 1500 if you want a sharper resolution).
7) Now hit save, and this is how I reduce the size of my photos before saving them onto my desktop - it makes them a better size for uploading and emailing them to others.
Here are photos of my card, the first shot is how it came directly out of the camera, and finally you'll see my edited version as described above that I would post on my blog. This is NOT a long process! All of the steps above take me about 2 minutes per photo since I just repeat the same editing functions every time. Between photography and editing - it adds about 10minutes to my prepping of a blog post, which I feel is well worth it. I hope you've found a few tips here to help you put your best foot (or photo!) forward.
And here it is flat, before setting it up:
I first want to show you my photography setup. This is my craft table, I am lucky to have it sitting next to a large, north facing window - which is a perfect location for photography.
Other than two Ott lights, I have no professional equipment. I grab a storage cube from the shelf behind me and plunk it down on my table. Then I grab a large piece of lightweight, flexible white cardstock that I bought at a stationary store ($1?) that becomes both my base and backdrop - you can see how I set it up against the cube. Because this makes a seemless backdrop, there are no corners, edges or shadows behind my cards, just a plain white background. I keep the lights always plugged in, sitting on the shelf behind me. Because everything is close at hand, my photography set up is less than a minute - no fancy set up required.
Notice the angle that I have everything placed at? I have my cards facing directly into the light coming in through the window. NATURAL LIGHT IS YOUR FRIEND! Find a spot in your home with a good supply of indirect light (direct sunlight is too harsh). Use whatever you have at hand to set your card on (chair/table/dresser). For me, the Ott lights provide an extra boost of "daylight" and mean less editing of my photos - and a lot of my shots are taken at night, so they provide my daylight. If you have a good location with natural light, you may not need lights at all. And yes, I wedge myself right up against the window to take my shots. Your light source should be coming from behind you, shining directly onto your work.
Here are two things to avoid. The shot on the left has the light in the room pointing behind the card, so the card is darker than the background. If all you're working with is an overhead light in the room, it should be over and behind your head as you take photos, so that as much light as possible falls on the front of your card. The shot on the right has a lamp shining on it from the left, leaving the right half of the card in shadow. This is why I use two lights - one on each side as shown below.
I play with them and move them around so that no shadows or bright spots appear on the card, and the light is evenly distributed. Next up: ANGLES
Take just a few extra seconds to position YOURSELF and your camera properly. The shot on the left is an exaggerated example of the photographer being positioned too high over the card. The shot on the right is simply snapped too quickly without a thought for position, resulting in a badly misshapen card. Put yourself down at the same level as your card (trust me, my chin is on or below my craft table). I look through my viewfinder to make sure that the edges of the card appear perfectly up and down. Try resting against something to help steady yourself. Make sure that you're not tilting the camera forwards or back. I take at least a dozen shots of every card, since I can't always be steady or perfectly positioned. The luxury of using digital cameras is the ability to take multiple photos in order to select a good one.
EDITING - After downloading my photos onto my computer and selecting the shots I will use, I edit them before putting them on my blog. I have used Photoshop, Lightroom and Picasa, but prefer to use a free online site called Picmonkey. I'm going to keep my editing tips brief to keep this post from getting too long!
Here is what I do after opening my photo:
1) Crop - Get rid of excess space around your photo, I leave a little bit to frame my card.
2) Exposure - I play with Brightness and Highlights to make my card as bright as possible.
3) Colour - I use Saturation to intensify colours when needed, and the temperature button allows you to warm up or cool down a photo. Only minute adjustments are needed. Sunny/snowy/cloudy days all have different effects on your photos so this is a great way to compensate for odd colour casts on your photos.
4) Click on the 2nd icon which is Effects - I usually add "Dark Edges" to my photos, to add a soft grey halo around the outside.
5) I use the butterfly icon to add my OCS watermark to my photos, or you can use the font icon to type your own watermark.
6) Finally, I resize my photos, making the largest side of my photo 800 pixels (this is adequate for a blog, make it 1200 or 1500 if you want a sharper resolution).
7) Now hit save, and this is how I reduce the size of my photos before saving them onto my desktop - it makes them a better size for uploading and emailing them to others.
Here are photos of my card, the first shot is how it came directly out of the camera, and finally you'll see my edited version as described above that I would post on my blog. This is NOT a long process! All of the steps above take me about 2 minutes per photo since I just repeat the same editing functions every time. Between photography and editing - it adds about 10minutes to my prepping of a blog post, which I feel is well worth it. I hope you've found a few tips here to help you put your best foot (or photo!) forward.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Birthday Front & Back
It's the first of August! Which means a whole bunch of inspiration on the One Crazy Stamper blog. I am sharing a fun birthday card using Art Impressions Front & Back - Eat Itself Set (Sku #4567):
This stamp set comes with a front upper body image and a full lower body image that is the rear view. I coloured both images with Copic markers, cut them out and glued them together. I assembled my card body, cut out a window opening, and positioned my birthday girl peeking out of it. Here's the view from the inside:
Be sure to check out what inspiration the rest of the Design Team has to share with you over on the OCS blog! Products found in the OCS store:
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