Exciting News!

Hello there stamping friends!  I'm popping over here on my "all-stamps-are-fabulous" blog to share some exciting news with you!  I was invited to be a part of the Coffee Loving Papercrafters Design Team and I'm so thrilled to be a part of such a talented group of designers.  Have you been following the new Design team announcements on the COFFEE LOVING CARDMAKERS blog?  If so, you can probably see why I'm so excited to be joining such an amazing team.

Chaitali Narla

Amy Tsuruta

Helen Gullett

Andreea Raghina

Christina Graca

Kerry Urbatch <----- me="" p="" s="" that="">

There are a few more to announce too but you'll have to wait a bit.  

WOWSERS 'eh?  I'm so honored to have been asked to join such a talented group of cardmakers and designers. 

So to share in my excitement, I brewed up a pot of extra-strong coffee, added some Italian Sweet Cream and headed to my stamp room to create a deelish card...With a stamp set I received from the most recent Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog hop! 

Melissa, owner of A Creative Journey with Melissa sent me this TASTY set of stamps to play with as winnings in the recent blog hop.  Don't you just LOVE the variety of cups and sentiments in this set "Coffee Is My Liquid Therapy" ???  The hearts, beans and smiley are a perfect little add-ons too!  LOVE this set.  They ink PERFECTLY too!!!

I started off by stamping the cup using Colorbox Chalk Charcoal ink.  I love this ink when I stamp with clear photopolymer stamps because it allows for a crisp and bleed-free image.  After stamping, I colored the image using an overlapping brushstroke pattern using my Copic markers.  You will find them listed in the photo below.  When done coloring, I added a few dots here and there to give some contrast and fussy cut the image. 

I decided I wanted the cup to be the primary focus of the card so I accentuated it with a watercolor background (a wash of Shimmer Gold Splash and Watermelon Color Splash) on Canson Watercolor paper that allowed the cup to just float along in a sea of bliss...  I embossed a few hearts using FSJ Clear Pigment ink and Journey Gold Embossing Powder.  I also added a few splatters of Gold Silk. 

To help "contain" the cup, I attached a bit of Natural Thread to the handle and positioned it to the far left -almost off the page with a little foam dot.  I added a tiny pearl (colored with gold silk) to the bow of the thread.  After embossing and assembling the panel, I punched a circular punch and stamped the sentiment -popped it up on the panel and attached the panel onto graph paper and then onto some Oatmeal Cookie cardstock.  A simple white card base finished it off. 

 I used the following Copic colors on my cup:

Thanks for popping in today to share in my excitement.  I'm also sharing another coffee-loving card on my Fun Stampers Journey Blog, so if you're interested in an extra shot of java today...head over THERE!