He’s Got My Vote!

Happy Monday! (Is there such a thing?)

If you’re a friend of this blog, you know that Guy Gondron is the MAN! He’s the “Real Artist” in our group, and gives us fantastic stamps to play with. Guy is involved in a competition, in which he could possibly win his own gallery show in New York. This would be a HUGE deal for him.

I thought since he’s given us so many hours of creativity and enjoyment, we could all give something back and vote for Guy! Here’s the link:

http://guygondron.artistswanted.org/atts2012

Go ahead and give him a vote. …. and just for fun, here’s a digi stamp freebie that he drew for CMS.

Vote for Guy!

Just Sayin’….

I’ve seen a bunch of these floating around lately, knitting, sewing, etc…  I figured it was time that us Copic lovers got one of our own, so I whipped this one up. Enjoy!

… and the Winner is….

Can I just say, WOW!

What an A-MAY-ZING blog hop! I could not have imagined in my wildest dreams so many of you coming by and hopping with us! I hope you all enjoyed your stamps!

We did have a grand prize, Copic Sketch Set Ex-6 to give away. Today, Christian, Shiloh and I went outside and Shiloh drew the winner from the fishbowl. There were 157 names in there!

So, without further ado, let’s see Shiloh pick the winner (she’s still learning how to read, so she’s getting a little help from Dad)…

So congrats to Mackey Lee!!! Please email Christian at chapmansales@gmail.com to arrange the shipping details.

Thank you to EVERYONE for hopping, enjoy the stamps! A big thank you to all of the CMS Design Team for their hard work and creativity! Way to go team!

Blog Hop and Digis and Copics, Oh My! The First Ever CMS Blog Hop!

<The blog hop is now closed. Please do not post additional comments or send emails, as you will not be eligible for the stamps or prize. Thank you everyone for all of the comment love and fun!>

WOOT! I am so excited to kick off the FIRST EVER CMS BLOG HOP!! We also have our first ever guest designer, Torrey Moseley! Thank you Torrey!

The Hop starts right here, right now at Making Our Mark! So congrats,  you’re in the right place!

Here’s how our hop will work: 
Each blog that you visit will post a letter along with their work. Leave a comment at each blog, collect the letter from each blog and put together the secret word. Once you have the secret word, email it to hurricaneheron@gmail.com. Once we’ve verified that you’ve commented at each blog, we’ll send you the ENTIRE set of Steampunk Digi stamps for free! One lucky hopper will receive Copic Sketch Set Ex-6! (Yup, that’s ALL of the NEW colors!)

Behold, the grand prize!

I’m the first stop on the hop! I had a wonderful, frustrating, exhilarating experience with these stamps… because I drew them myself. Those of you who frequent MoM know that Kathie and Guy are our main artists, so I was nervous because I’m not quite in their league. Steampunk is one of my favorite genres, so I had a lot of fun coloring them, and even more fun seeing the DT bring them to life. I’m excited to share them with all of you!

Here are my projects:

Steampunk Lola

Dream Balloon

He reminds me of one of my favorite movies, "Up".

So, my letter is “I”. 

From here you hop on over to Becky’s blog: Stamping With Bekah.  If you get lost along the way, you can always come back here and find your way again. Below is a complete list of our DT Hop Hosters.

Colleen (Making Our Mark)
Becky (Stamping with Bekah)
Diane (Diane’s Country Cards)
Dionne: (Deez Creative Designs)
Guy: (Work In Progress)
Jodi: (Kaboo Designs)
Kathie: (Beary Wishes)
Larelyn: (Handmade from the Heart)
Lynne: (Scrapbook Lynne’s)
Peggy: (Peggy’s Stamping Obsession)
Shelley: (Heartstrings)
Torrey: (Left Field)

Thanks so much for hopping with us! Have fun!

Get your bunny shoes on, it’s almost time to hop, Hop, HOP!

Just a brief note to let everyone know we’ll  be starting a blog hop featuring our Design Team on Friday, April 27th.

If you complete the hop, you will win the ENTIRE set of Steampunk Stamps that we are hopping with! Also, and this is BIG, one random hopper will be picked to win Copic Sketch Marker Set Ex-6! That’s right, all of the new colors, just for hanging out with us!

Help us get the word out! The more successful this hop is, the more hops we’ll do, and the more hops we do means more free stamps and markers! Here’s our button if you’re interested!

See you next Friday!

Easter Blessings (Digi Freebie Included)

We have some beautiful Easter stamps drawn by Kathie Zaban, along with some beautiful creations by our Design Team. These stamps, along with all of our other releases, are available at Copic Marker Scrapbooking.

We at CMS wish you a happy and blessed Resurrection Day!

By Kathie

By Jodi

By Diane

By Larelyn

By Kathie

By Peggy

By Shelley

By Diane

By Jodi

By Colleen (hey, that's me!)

By Shelley

By Larelyn

By Kathie

 

Didn’t they do a great job?  Leave them some comment love!

Here’s an Easter freebie for you!

 

The Wearin’ o’ the Green (Digi Freebies)

St. Patrick’s Day is a beautiful holiday. It celebrates St. Patrick, who evangelized Ireland in the fourth century. He was a Welsh Roman Citizen who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Ireland. After escaping, he later returned to Ireland. It’s said he drove the snakes from Ireland, but that’s a metaphor for the snake torcs that the pagans wore, which were discarded after St. Patrick spread the Gospel.

Our stamps drawn by Guy Gondron tell the story of St. Patrick, they begin with some of the imagery related to the primitive Irish mythology and move through St. Patrick’s mission. The stamps are available at www.copicmarkerscrapbooking.com Enjoy the story our Design Team is telling with their work…

By Shelley

By Scrapbook Lynne

Colored by Guy

By Colleen, hey that's me!

By Shelley

By Scrapbook Lynne. She made a book out of the images for her grandsons, to teach them about their Irish roots!

By Jodi

By Shelley

By Scrapbook Lynne

Tree of Life By Colleen

By Shelley

By Peggy

By Guy

By Colleen

By Jodi

By Guy

By Scrapbook Lynne

Didn’t they do a lovely job? Leave them some comment love!
Here are today’s freebies, enjoy them!

A Coloring Tutorial by Guy Gondron (Free Line Art Included)

Quick note from Colleen: Guy created this as a coloring tutorial/exercise for our Design Team, but he was kind enough to offer to share it with ALL of our CMS friends as well. The following tutorial is all his words, his art work. Thanks Guy!! 

The basic summary I would give is – I use a lot of layers even if I don’t necessarily use a lot of colors. As always, try to keep in mind where the light is coming from. I wasn’t too scrupulous with that this time around. The light source is from above and should be mostly warm colors, as it’s coming from the hot sun, but it’s also coming through layers of water. Normally that would wash out every color and all you’d have is blue, but this is our fantasy world, so I only tinted everything blueish to get that cool feeling. By contrast, whereas the warm sun is the above light source, the reflected light from the ocean floor gives the underside of things a cooler tone. I should have emphasized this more, but as I was worried about the octopus popping out as much as possible, I left most of the blues out of the octopus.

Distance also increases the amount of blue in an object, so those closest to the viewer should be the brightest and most colorful. Another reason why I kept the blues out of my focal point. Distance dims. That’s why majestic mountains are purple. It’s a good thought to keep when trying to create some depth.

Here is the Venilia line art if you’d like to try it yourself:

 

Under The Sea (Digi Freebie too!)

Our Design Team had fun this week with some great new stamps from Kathie Zaban! We enjoyed magical mermaids and fun underwater adventures. If you’d like to try your own adventure with these adorable stamps, they can be purchased at www.copicmarkerscrapbooking.com.

By Kathie Zaban

By Dionne

By Peggy

By Diane A.

By Jodi

By Colleen, hey that's me!

By Diane L.

By Becky

By Kathie

By Larelyn

By Shelley

By Jodi

By Scrapbook Lynne

By Colleen

By Dionne- she made her own Smash book!

By Shelley

By Kathie

By Kathie

Didn’t they do a great job? Leave them some comment love, and a thanks to Kathie for the great freebie! (A reminder, please feel free to “pin” any of the tutorials and projects that appear on this blog to your Pinterest boards, but please do NOT pin the freebies. Thanks!)

The Smash Book of Misfit Images. (Digi Stamp Freebie)

Confession: the coloring part is my favorite. I am in love with my Copics and enjoy coloring everything that I can. Laying out cards and scrapbook layouts runs a distant second. So, with each new release, I usually wind up with several fully colored, homeless images.

My daughter and I have been Smash booking together, so the idea hit me to create a Smash book for all of the misfit images I have left over after each stamp release. I’ve started with the Mythology set, and included my color selections, and details about the other projects that found homes outside of the book.

Books like these are not only a great keepsake to remember my DT work, it also lets me track my progression as a colorist, and remember good color combinations. The Smash book is from K&Co., the images are Guy Gondron for CMS.

Mythology Page of the Smash Book of Misfit Images

Close up, Page 1

Mythology Page 2

I hope this inspires you to start your own catalog of misfit images! Here’s a cute little griffin from our Mythology set to get you started! (As a side note, you are welcome to “pin” any of the projects and tutorials that appear on this blog onto Pinterest, but our artists would appreciate it if you did NOT pin our freebies. Thank you!)