Birthday Greetings: The Greeting Farm + Copics

Hi everyone! I have a special card to share today! When my good friend Rosemary asked if I wanted to create a card for this week's The Greeting Farm Farm Fresh Friday challenge as the theme is Birthday in honor of Marie's birthday awesomely talented owner and illustrator of The Greeting Farm, so of course, I said yes right away!! Be sure to check out the FFF Post for you chance to win 2 amazing prizes! I admit to being terrible at remembering birthdays so I was glad for the reminder, too. This card will be on its way to her in the morning. I'm so grateful for the friendship that formed after picking up my first TGF order in 2009 - yep, how lucky am I that TGF headquarters is only a hop, skip and jump from me?! Better than that, Marie and I hit it off and it's a friendship that has endured through a wedding, and the birth of 5 babies…well, between the two of us. haha I already had a head start on her in the marriage and baby department, but I think she's determined to catch up with babies! ;)

In addition to this week's FFF Challenge, I used the Deconstructed Sketch 191 to create my card and I can't think of a better fit for the SSS Wednesday Challenge: Special Lady/Girly! 

So, I had signed up for the Super Secret Stamp Club last go around and this cute SSS No.014 Love Peppermint has been begging to be inked and colored so I kept returning to her as I thought about which stamp I wanted to use. I adore her little peppermint hat, but had this crazy idea of turning that into a cake since this IS a birthday card! I pushed aside my altering insecurities and just went for it. I masked off the lines for the peppermint as best I could from the top with some masking paper and inked up the stamp as usual. Carefully removed the masks (I almost forgot to do this!) and stamped the image on Copic Xpress It Blending Card. Then I penciled in the cake and once I was satisfied (erasers are my friends) I went over that with a Copic Multiliner as I was planning on coloring my image with Copic Markers.

I think she came out quite cute actually! I colored her over the course of two days here and there. I tried out a new hair color combination - well, to be honest, every combination is new (again) to me since it had been nearly a year since using Copics again. I also impressed myself by tackling pleats in her skirt! Of course, what is an image without some sparkle so I went over all the pink parts with my beloved Zig Wink of Stella Glitter Brush pen! ;)

I am still decorating the insides of my cards these days - I am telling you it feels GOOD to do this! Not only does the card look and feel more complete - I'm using up more of my papers that I love so much. Win win! The inside of my card is super simple. I just die cut some white card stock and used the piece I had cut off from the front and adhered it on top. Then I stamped the sentiment which is from The Greeting Farm "Dollie with Hearts" - I think it is fitting for a birthday card!

Here is a list of all the colors I used to color my image today. I barely got them all to fit in this little tin. haha

Also, I wanted to mention this AWESOME 30 Day Coloring Challenge that Kathy of The Daily Marker blog is hosting! She is challenging herself and anyone that wants to join her to color something - anything - every day for 30 days. It doesn't have to be something big and you don't have to put it on a card. All coloring mediums are welcome! In fact, I was participating in the challenge as I colored this image over the past two days. Coloring is my happy place - for real - I tried to give it up last year and well, that didn't go so well! In fact, check out this article on how coloring is actually proven to be a stress relief! So, let's have fun coloring, every day, for as little as 5 or 10 minutes, however long you can fit in and lets all relieve some stress this month! Be sure to share on your blogs or instagram with the hashtag #thedailymarker30day - Kathy is making visits and I'm loving pulling up the hashtag each day to see all the gorgeous coloring that is being shared! Be sure to visit her blog for ALL the details and pssst, prizes. ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by today (for this extra long post) - If you liked my card today and don't want to miss a post, please be sure to follow me by clicking the button below!