Mother's Day 2012 Card

I just returned from visiting family in Michigan (my husband and I waited until the weather warmed up before visiting - we moved south for a reason!). While there, I was able to take a Copic certification class with my sister. Since I've been working with the markers for about a year now, it was more of a review than anything new. I will post more about the class later.

Today I would like to share my Mother's Day card with you. The stamped image is Magnolia's Happy Spring Tilda. I colored her with Copic Sketch markers. I really like the way the background came out. I used the blender and a couple shades of blue to get a watercolor-like effect (click the image to enlarge). I added the ground line with a Copic Multiliner SP pen. These pens are made to work with the markers so they will not bleed or blur, once they have dried, when coloring with Copic markers.

The leaves were cut on my Sizzix using the Branch with Leaves Sizzlits die. I found it as a single die at my local craft store but it is part of the Flowers, Branches, & Leaves set on the Sizzix website. It is one of my favorite dies; I can use it as one piece (shown above, in two instances) or cut it up. The rose was cut with the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. The rest of the flowers were cut with the Mother's Day Bouquet Cricut cartridge (the actual cartridge is out of print but you may still find it on eBay or elsewhere - if not, the link above is for the Cricut Craft Room digital version). One of these days I'll show a step-by-step for creating the flowers. The butterfly was also cut with a Cricut cartridge but I don't remember which one (sorry!). I had used the Gypsy to search for "butterfly" one day and cut a bunch from different cartridges using white card stock then airbrushed them with the Copic system.

I wanted the punched border down the right side of the card to match the the lace on Tilda's sleeves. I punched it in a yellow-orange card stock (Martha Stewart punch) and used Barn Door Distress Ink with a sponge applicator to softly blend into it. I used Grand Nestibilities to cut out the colored image of Tilda, as well as the scalloped edge behind it.