Surgery can have it's benefits...

I had surgery last week to remove a parathyroid and spent 4 days sleeping and crafting.  I have to say, I got quite a bit accomplished!  I was able to complete 2 more cards, make a huge dent on my Christmas Cards (yes, I said Christmas cards!) and complete some gift projects that are going with me on a Scrapbook retreat in October.

Today, I am going to show the two cards I made.  I work for an amazing company.  It is a relatively small company (400+ employees) based out of Wisconsin and then we have a 30 person satellite office in Austin.  The company truly cares about their employees and I received flowers, gift baskets and all kinds of well wishes from my teammates and corporate.  In return, I just had to send thank you cards. :-)

My first card is a technique I am trying to learn - coloring.  I love to stamp, but I have not learned the art of coloring.  I have a gazillion copic markers and am a little intimidated with them (even after taking some classes).  I have bought several stamps and digi stamps and finally decided to sit down and try my hand at coloring.  I used my Stampin Up water color pencils and watercolor crayons for my card.  I felt it would give a softer look versus using my copics.

The stamp is Magnolia Tilda with flowing hair.  I have 2 "Tilda" stamps.  I think she is just so cute and hope to invest in some more.  I used some paper from a Heidi Grace paper pad and Barely Banana Stampin Up cardstock.  I cut my image with Spellbinders Labels 4, then inked the edges with Stampin Up Barely Banana ink.  I think she turned out pretty cute for my first try.

My next card is a replica of a card from Nichole Heady who is a designer for Papertrey Ink. Nichole has a video on her site explaining how to emboss and color with copics.

I used scraps of cardstock for my card and failed to write down the copic colors I used.  This was a very quick and easy card to make.  It took me longer to pull out my supplies than it did to make the card!  I definitely want to do something like this again.  I used Versa Mark to stamp my image, then embossed it with White embossing powder.  I let it set and harden for a little bit, then began coloring the embossed image.

I will be posting my gift projects on my next post.  Stay tuned!