Shoefly Smile!!! (and Sketch Challenge!!)

I woke up this morning with visions of new stamps dancin' in my head!! No sugar plums here!! I had so much fun playing with them last night....but I'll share those later!

This morning I checked my favourite blogs and found a sketch challenge from Beate! She always has the best stuff on her blog, Fresh and Fun and I get such inspiration from her!! The sketch is fantastic and was perfect to go with my new Inky Antics Shoefly stamp!! Isn't she just so cute??

During my fun shopping spree yesterday, I picked up some new black ink. Now I have only ever used black inks that I have purchase from Stampin' Up....Basic Black and black Stazon. But I read on another blog (forgive me, but I can't remember which one) that I needed to try Archival Versafine Onyx Black ink. The blogger said that if you aren't using it, you are totally missing out!! She was SO right!!! It is an Instant Dry Pigment Ink, so it is like the craft ink and covers the stamp very well, produces a sharp and very black image and dries almost instantly!! I LOVE it and would like to thank whoever it was that mentioned this on their blog......does it ring a bell with anyone?? She deserves a RAK!!!

So I stamped the image on shimmery white cardstock and then grabbed my Pocket Full of Posies stack by DCWV. It has sparkles all over this particular patterned paper and I took all the colours from the paper. Then I pulled out my Prismacolour Pencils, my Odorless Mineral Spirits and my stumps (doesn't that sound lovely??) and went to work! Now I am not very proficient in this technique but I do believe that I am improving. I guess it takes practice and the right tools. I was getting frustrated when I first tried this technique (not to mention, spent all the money on the pencils) I wasn't having much luck using Whisper White paper and the stumps I picked up at Michael's but I have found that since I switched to the shimmery paper and found some stumps made in Taiwan, the combination really HAS made a difference.

I coloured her and shaded around her using a light blue, then added a frame with a fine tipped black pen and added some Waterfall Stickles on her wings. She is punched out using the Clever Lever Mega Circle Punch and the Pixie Pink layer is the Giga Scallop Punch. I added the dots using my black Sakura Glaze Pen. The card base is 5 1/2 X 5 1/2 in Pixie Pink with a Basic Black layer. I used my corner rounder to create the scalloped edge on the patterned paper and added the strip across the middle using Marigold Morning and another piece of the pp. I stamped the word 'SMILE' using my Paper Tray set and punched it out with the Round Tab Punch. Then I popped on some Prima flowers and added some clear beads in the center of the flowers!! The main image is pop dotted of course!!

Thanks Beate for a wonderful sketch!! Sketch challenges are my favourite!!