High Hopes Stamp Challenge

Hello everyone and happy August!

We are having a beautiful summer here in London - absolutely fantastic!  And for some reason it is motivating me to craft!  Well, that along with the fact that I had my crafty Mother-in-Law here for two weeks, AND I've been making time to get together with my stamping and crafting friends lately!  We had an awesome time at Friday night crop at Scrappin' Great Deals last week - if you live in the area - definitely come and hang out with us some time!  It's a blast!

I am also LOVING this weather and spending so much time outside - enjoying my backyard and deck.  Even sharing my son's little pool with him!  It fits my bum, so it works for me!  And I happen to really like taking photos of my cards outside - instead of inside.  I just like the look of the outside shots personally.

I'm especially motivated lately because I'm beyond excited to go to a full day workshop with Suzanne Dean this Sunday!  HURRAY!  I've been looking forward to this for MONTHS!  If you don't know of her, and you're a Copic fan, you really need to check out her blog - and her FABULOUS YouTube tutorials!  I really love them - they are so helpful.

I've been re-discovering my High Hopes stamps lately, which were buried in my stash.  They are beautiful images to colour with Copics.  I really love little people, and love colouring skin and hair especially, so these are perfect for me!  You can find a full selection of them at Scrappin' Great Deals.  Sheila keeps all the latest in stock!  And my beloved friend and fellow stamper Andrea happens to be on their design team - so that certainly helps - as she's one of my crafty inspirations!  (Definitely check out her beautiful blog for some inspiration - she is so talented).

I stamped this little girl with Memento tuxedo black, on XPress It cardstock.  I always pull my Copic colours from my paper, and this one is My Mind's Eye, Lime Twist - Fly a Kite.  I coordinated with Stampin' Up Pumpkin Pie and Buckaroo Blue to pull from the papers.  I really like working with the 6x6" paper stacks and pulling all my other colours (card, flowers, Copics) from there.

I started by colouring her overalls in blue with B00, B02, B04, B06, B18.  I've feathered over with the colourless blender a little to bring in some more highlight.  I then coloured her t-shirt, bows, and patches in orange with YR07, YR04, Y38, trying to get a little contrast at least, even in those tiny spaces.  Then I picked up the red in the flowers & ladybugs, with R14, R24, R26.  I've coloured the little hearts in R14, R12.  The skin I used my usual combo of E11, E02, E01, E00, R20.  I like having lots of depth in the face and lots of shading.  I just like the effect on my little characters faces.  Her hair I've used my favourite combo E35, E31, YR20, which can really give different effects depending on how many layers you do, and how much white space you leave.  The shoes and buckles are with E29, E27, E25.  The grass and leaves are done with G20, G21, G24, G29.  I've highlighted her eyes with B00 (I'm not fond of leaving "empty" eyes) and as I usually do, outlined the whole image with BG10 (my favourite colour).  I've highlighted the little "dots" in B00, added some diamond glaze to the bugs and the flowers, and some stickles to the dots and lines, just to perk it up a little!

I added some Prima flowers, some rhinestones, and a cute sentiment from My Favorite Things - stamped on some of the Lime Twist paper and punched with a die from My Favorite Things.

I've entered this card into these challenges:
High Hopes:  anything goes
Oldie but Goodie:  Outdoors
Creative Craft Challenges:  summertime
Everybody Art Challenges:  summer
Craft Your Passion:  favourite season
Have a great week!

Sarah
xx