Long time, no odd!

It feels like it's been ages since I've colored up a Some Odd Girl stamp!  I was working on something for Farmhouse Memories using Artist Mae by Some Odd Girl and had to do something up for myself!  When coloring her, I knew I wanted to use some of my new embellishments from the OhDeerMe embellishment kit that I'm trying out (if you're interested in subscribing for your self, enter my name and email at the check out and we'll both get a $5 coupon!)  - it's only month one, but I love what I'm seeing :)

Anyway, let's see the card already!

I used the washi tape from the kit to create the background.  Since I knew I wanted to use the washi ahead of time, I colored Mae in a nice coordinating green.  The hearts, 'yay!' token, and chipboard arrow are from the kit as well.

I don't know what it is, but I'm loving the lime green and teal combo! Here's a little close up of Mae.

And since it happens to be an Anything Goes Challenge at Markerpop this week, I'll be playing along there.

Thanks for stopping by!

Angie
SUPPLIES
PAPER - Copic XPress It Blending Card stock, white card stock, Bazzill Candy Shop Green with Envy
STAMPS - Some Odd Girl Artist Mae, Impression Obsession Splatter background
COPICS - Skin - E01, E01, E11, E08, E04; Hair - E97, E15, E18; Clothes - YG01, YG03, YG06, C1, C3, C5; Markers and bag - C3, BG10, BG11, BG13
OTHER - OhDeerMe July Embellishment Kit

My New Copic Swatch Book

Back in February, I shared my little disc bound coupon book that I came up with.  I really do love these notebooks and I've been frustrated with my Copic swatch book for some time now.  I haven't been creating much lately (wallpaper removal was kicking my butt!!) but I still wanted to color, so I decided it was the perfect time to redo my swatch book.

I stopped at Staples to grab some discs to create a new book, but when I got there, I found this notebook with a clear hard cover and interchangeable cover designs.  

Originally, I thought I'd use some decorated chipboard, but this worked even better!  I decided to make my own little cover and display it through the clear plastic.  I wasn't sure what to do with the covers it came with, but figured they'd be usable...eventually ;)

The first thing I did was pull things out of my old book.  I was using a portfolio that I grabbed at Michael's and realized I wasn't really using it since it was a nuisance to pull the pages in and out any time I wanted to add a swatch.  With the disc notebook, the pages are easily accessible and the extra pages easily fold back out of the way.  When I went to add my Copic color chart to the book, I noticed when I would punch the holes it would cut off the top row of colors so I headed back to the Copic website and printed a new one - I adjusted my print settings so there would be a little bit of a margin to allow for the hole punching.

 I added wash tape to the edge to reinforce the hole punching.

I had been using some circles that I printed from my computer for color combos, but wasn't 100% happy with them, so I did a search and found this great combo chart.  I printed out a bunch of them, added some washi tape, punch the holes and started filling them in.

The rest of the items I already had in my swatch book were for people coloring - eyes, skin, hair combos.  I kept these same pages, adding a strip of washi to each one, then adding them to my book.

Free blank eye chart can be found here

I have my book organized into four sections (using the included covers as divider pages :))-
1.  color chart and tools.  I have some transparent light source guides that I put in a zipper pocket.

Free downloads of the guides can be found here

2.  the color combo charts.

3.  the eye, hair, and skin combo charts.

4.  I left some of the lined paper that came with the notebook to make notes and scribble drawings as needed.

To finish the whole thing off, I needed a cover!  I had purchased the Copica image from Saturated Canary when it first came out and kind of forgot about her.... until I was sifting through digi stamps to find one for my cover!!  I resized her to take up most of the page and added some outlined letters.  And then the fun began..... COLORING!!  I'm in love with this color combo that I ended up using on her.  Here's the full cover:

And here's a close up of Copica:

So now I'm happy with my swatch book and I have no excuse to not keep it current!

This weeks challenge at MarkerPop is Anything Goes so I'm playing along with the challenge:

Thanks for stopping by,

Angie