Copic markers color anything?!

So in the Copic marker certification classes we talked about how Copic markers will color anything.  I had to wonder if this was true. I mean a marker that will color anything. That would be completely awesome.   I had to test this...

Enter my problem...I was working on beading some of my new wine glass charms and I wanted some crystal bicones to match the purple skull that was the main focus. 

I took the Copic markers and tested them on paper to find the color that matched. This is the one I chose.

I took the brush side of this Copic sketch marker, V09, and used it to color a clear crystal bicone (and some of my fingers which got in the way.)  So, do Copic markers color crystal bicones? Yep they sure do.

I polished them up with a soft dry cloth and used them on my wine charms. Check it out:

So now if you want custom color crystal bicones just have some clear ones on hand and all you have to do is find a matching Copic marker and color away. :)

Copic Certifications

I figured it's about time that I post about my experience going though with the Copic standard and intermediate certification classes.  I took the standard and the intermediate back to back, so the standard class was on Saturday followed by the intermediate on Sunday.  These are not short classes  and made for a long weekend when I had to drive about an hour to get to them. The standard class is 7 hours and the intermediate class was a 9 hour day, with breaks of course, but when you add on 2 hours for driving it was just long days.

Let me say that it was fun as heck though. Both of my classes were nice and small, no more than 20 people there. This was great. We had time to share some stories, talk, get to know one another better than if there was a larger group. As a small group it also meant that we got tons of instruction and question time. Our instructor Cindy Lawarence was wonderful. She answered all our questions and gave us plenty of individual time pointing out when we should try something different or encouraging us to be brave and try colors we didn't think would work together.  I learned so much and had so much fun.

I won't deny that part of the joy of taking the classes is receiving goodie bags for each one. I love goodies. The standard class gave us this wonderful little Copic zip pouch, a sketch colorless blender 0, a refill for the colorless blender, and 4 standard non-refillable multi liners ( black 0.3 & 0.5, sepia 0.5, and grey 0.3)

Would you know it...I made the mistake of having the 0.3 multi liner sitting on my desk when the kid asked to borrow a pen and I handed it to her. She broke it....before I even had a chance to use it. She presses to hard on her writing instruments so I should have known better.  :(  So now I make sure they don't get put in with all my other pens on my desk and the kids don't use them.

The second day with the intermediate class we got a roll of x-press it double sided tape. I didn't realize Copic made such a wide range of products.  I must say that I love this tape and it's been a life saver for some of the kids school projects, much easier and less messy than glue. We also got a 72 marker travel case. <3

Then on both of the days we also go a cute little portfolio to put some of our works in.

Getting Crafty

So ArtFire.com is running this cool contest. It's your chance to win the supplies to try a new craft.
You can check out the post on their blog, Nosh, for all the details on how to enter this cool contest.

I thought I'd share my pin board on Pinterest with you all so you could see what my Get Crafty board looks like. It's full of fun things. Lots of Tim Holtz Distress Stains, some punches and Sizzix dies, a few stencils, and some essentials (cutting mat, scoring board, and table protector.)  I just got my Sizzix machine and I have not even taken it out of the box yet. I'd love to try to create some three dimensional paper collages all the goodies on my board. I'd like to learn more about the Distress Stains and the way they work with paper (so may ideas....)  I'd take everything and make something awesome!!!

Be sure to check out the contest and enter if you already haven't!

It's been a long time.

Like the title of this post says, it's been a long time, to long, since I posted last. A lot has happened. I've been super busy and life just kind of took over for a bit but things are starting to look better.

Let's see...where to begin...right after my last post I lost my father and my kids finished school. I miss my dad dearly. It's been very hard for me, it was unexpected and sudden. He was and amazing person and I'm still trying to figure out what to do with out him around and missing him all the time. 

Surprisingly the kids were amazing all summer long. I think my dad was poking them and making them behave for me. I've never seen them go that long with good behavior. Now that school is back in session the kids are back to being themselves. Good thing, is I finally get some time to work, bad thing - since being back to school I have had each kid home at least once for being sick and one of them twice and it's only been a month. Hopefully that is not a sign of what this year is going to be like.

We adopted a new puppy, Stormie, from a shelter out here. We're not quite sure what kind of dog she is but she is a riot. The vet said she is definitely basinji and the trainer thinks she a little bit of shepard but she also has webbed toes, so who knows. She's been amazing. She was already semi-house broken (she goes outside on schedule but will not let us know via barking or such outside of the schedule), crate trained, sits and has already started playing with our older dog. She started puppy training classes and went to puppy play time, she had to sit outside the gate for that one. She's more of a people dog than a dog dog but the trainer will work with her on that.

We started construction today on our house. The upstairs bath is getting completely remodeled. Today began the demolition, so it's been super loud between the banging and the dog barking. Shouldn't be long though.

So things are moving along, I recently took the Copic certification classes, both the standard and intermediate ones. Look for a blog post about that coming coming soon. :) 

Inks and Cookbooks

I've been busy lately. I wanted to give inking a shot so hubby said I needed to start off with brush inking, ha. He gave me a few books to read on inking and some videos to watch. I watched the videos and read over the books. Last time I was at the art store I bought a $18 white sable #2 brush. (It was cheaper than the Windsor Newton Series 7 because I can't see spending $40 on a brush just to goof off with.) I have to say that it holds it's shape well as long as it's loaded with ink and I don't try to use it when it's to dry.

I never do things the easy way so I started out with a picture off of Deviant Art"Fallen" by Rantz I fully inked this with a brush. After working on another picture and going back I see some things that I would do different, or at least I think I could make it look a little better. Anyway here it is - Left is original pencil and right is my inks:

I came across this site seanellery.com and he has a bunch of pencils on there for people to ink so I grabbed "Arwyn" - by Marcio Abreu This one came out better. I inked all with the brush except for the hair and some of the leaves which were inked with a Micron pen. Same - Original pencil on the left and my inks on the right:

Anyway I'll do more inking and practice when I get time. In the meantime I have a cookbook I'm working on basically publishing for someone. I helped design the cover and back. I'm printing it and physically hand making / binding each book. :D I'm excited to be doing this. It's going to be a spiral bound book instead of a hard sewn bound book. This way someone can fold it over, lay it flat or have it sit nicely on a book holder without having to worry about it closing on them or creasing the spine.

Right now I have everything needed for the books ordered. I cut the book board for the covers and the sheets of paper for the interior of the covers. Here's the stack of board for 25 books:

I still have work to do on page layouts and getting all the recipes to fit right onto the pages and making sure all the formatting is the same. I think that is what is actually going to take the longest. I'll post more pictures of the progress of the books as I can. :)