February boy

Seems like I can't get away without making a scene fairly often! I had such fun making this one! First of all, I knew I would get to use my copics and then secondly, it is always a little bit of a challenge to come up with something cute.I am hoping you think I managed both! I know the owl is a bit large, but I love that guy - he has google eyes by the way! I stamped the fishing one letter at a time. I am pretty pleased with the way it came out. Those clouds are a single cloud stamp. I finally broke down and bought a cloud! Its a whole lot easier than drawing them!! At least for me. The message "Fishing you    Happy Birthday" got in my head and I just had to find something to use it on!! I thought it was just too cute and you know how that is! The fish, bobber and Edwin's wings are Spica pen so they are glittery in the right light. I did the water with zigzag strokes of copics - used three different colors. There are two colors in the grass. And then used the spica to make some waves. I really liked the way it came out. Actually it was a supreme accident! So was the ribbon borders and I know I will do them again. The inside is heat embossed with white embossing powder.

Originally I was going to paper piece the balloons, but ended up liking them way too much and just left them alone. Of course I use a stamp-a-ma-jig to layout my scenes. I am really getting much better at actually using it for more things - like placing letters. It sure makes life much easier and doesn't take much time at all. So here are the copics I used: Y21,Y26, Y28, Y17, B91, B93, B97, YR23, Y08, B00, B0000, E25, E00, E11, E37, E29, E18, E33, E31, E35, E41, E21, R20, YG03, YG63, YG67, YG11, SPICA 03, 00, 11, 18. Sure seems like a lot of colors when you look at the picture! I imagine everyone is as excited about seeing all the new products being released at CHA as I am! So far there is only one thing I just have to have no matter what - that is at least one of the new distress markers from Tim Holtz! I finally have almost all my stamps organized so its going to take something beyond beyond for me to buy more before I am completely done.

My biggest and best suggestion is no matter how you store your stamps, you really should make a category divided notebook of each stamp. My categories include: people, flowers and vegetables, background stamps, scene items, words, vehicles. I stamp every stamp into that notebook (it is looseleaf and really not neat at all!) and then near that image I tell where it is stored. I have my wooden ones in huge boxes (2 rows high), my cling and clear stamps take a bit more explaination - I will take some photos and post my way of storage shortly. I look through my notebook and decide what I am doing. Then I go get the stamps and voila! If I am not sure of the size, I can measure the image in my book. Since I redid the cling, I have pretty much decided to unmount my wood stamps and store them like the other ones. I find I go to the cling/clear first because its so easy to find them and put them back.

Please leave me a comment and tell me if you think I am improving. I am really wanting to streamline my processes so I hope I haven't lost any quality. What do you think? Hugs to you all, Barb F