Spring is here (so says the calendar!) and so is Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge again. Here's this week's sketch we worked with:
While I was making my cards, I decided to do go with a pastel-ish theme that reminded me of Spring and decided to make two cards simply because I couldn't make up my mind which direction I wanted to go in, LOL! So now I'll have a few birthday cards in reserve, ready to go (always a bright side, right?!). Here they are:
They both use Karen Lockhart's Packages -- what I really like about these is that by coloring them in different color schemes, you can have either birthday presents, wedding presents, baby presents, or Christmas presents -- whatever your heart's desire!
Both cards use BasicGrey's Two Scoops cardstock and Papertrey Ink's Stamper's Select White Card Sets as bases. The Presents were stamped onto Curious Iridescent Cryogen White shimmer cardstock and cut with Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Circles. I wanted to try an experiment because I had heard Ranger's Adirondack dye inks worked well with Copic markers, not bleeding. So the the first card uses Adirondak Espresso (dark chocolate brown) ink:
(Both inks were heat set very quickly with my heat gun). I found it stamped very clear & crisp and did not smear at all when coloring with my Copics! The focal image was mounted on some Heidi Swapp pink flowers and uses Doodlebug Limeade rick-rack (toned down and darkened a bit with the green Copic I used to color the presents). Poinsettia Dew Drops finish off this card in the lower right dotted panel, which was cut with Spellbinders largest of the Large set of Nestabilities Classic Rectangle dies.
The second card was stamped with what used to be my favorite ink to use with Copics <grin!> Tsukineko's Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate pigment ink. Although I thought I had dried it long enough, I was a little dissapointed my favorite ink let me down a bit and I had a little smearing (although you probably won't be able to detect it in the photo):
I could also see a difference in this pigment ink stamping a little more "thickly" (for lack of a better word) and thus, the image not being quite so clear or as many open spaces as the other image. Still, I'm sure I'll still be using this ink on occasion.
This card also uses some Doodlebug rick-rack in Bubble Blue again, darkened with a Copic marker and stapled with a mini-stapler on the right sides. Yellow Stickles were applied to each of the Spellbinders Nestabilities Classic Scalloped mat.
ETA: Here are the close up side-by-side comparisons for you (click on the thumbnails for a larger view):
L-Ranger Adirondack Esspresso dye ink . . . R-Tuskineko Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate pigment ink
I hope you enjoyed this comparison and my cheery birthday cards and will check out these blogging buddies of mine, to see their samples: Cambria Turnbow, Charmaine Ikach, Jenn Balcer, Laurie Schmidlin, Lori Craig and MaryJo Albright.
I hope you'll try this sketch this weekend and have a very enjoyable Easter weekend!