 Hi there, I'm Sandy Olnok, artist and paper crafter and I am participating in the United We Conquer blog hop for Ellen Hudson who's doing a breast cancer research foundation fundraiser with this great stamp and die set. $25 is going to be donated per set, not 25% but $25. So how cool is that? This is the stamp set. It's in one of the oversized big ones has tons of flowers, but look at all these great sentiments. There are a lot that are really perfect for survivors and for those undergoing the living nightmare that is cancer. But it also has sentiments that are going to be good for everybody because we all go through stuff too. On the backside it has lots of information about just a whole bunch of stuff and then it has a die set that has the nice ribbon in it too. So I am going to create a card using this today. What I started out doing is stamping out all of the sets because each one of these is a layering set and there's basically six-ish flowers and they stamp on top of each other in different colors. You're going to see on the blog hop, everybody else is going to do that. I'm going to turn six flowers into 16 by treating each one differently and I'm taking some Lawn Fawn inks that are Copic friendly and I am going to just stamp them randomly. A whole bunch of yellow, a little bit of pink, a little bit of green and just layer a couple different colors. But you can see I've just slathered the whole thing with stamps to make a nice background for myself and then I'm targeting a little bit of pink and a little bit of green on a few flowers and that sort of thing just to create a little bit of difference in those colors. I am going to go over it and do some coloring because coloring is what I do, right? So then I'm going to take it out of my misty and I grabbed a couple of markers. It doesn't really matter what colors these are because it doesn't really matter what colors you use on the whole thing. Yellow is my thing. That's my signature color and the person who's going to get this card, a friend of mine who is actually undergoing cancer treatment right now, is going to know that this is from me because it's yellow. Even though pink is the color for breast cancer, I do yellow everything so she's going to remember that I'm the one who sent her this when she receives it. So that's why mine's all yellow and I just picked some colors out so I could create some more flower shapes on top of each one of these. Now some of them I'm going to create the flower shadows and stuff just within the shape itself and some like this one I'm going to extend that light color beyond that little yellow middle part and on some of them I'm even going to add some extra little petals and create a little bit more of an extended look for each one of the shapes that's been stamped. This is basically just using each one of these as a takeoff to create a whole new kind of flower. If you don't know how to draw flower shapes then go look at some flowers on Google and look at how the petals come together and that sort of thing because it's really going to help to create different shapes, different sizes, make some of them smaller, make some of them bigger, do a whole bunch of different kinds of things with them so that you can create a different look for each and every flower. For some of them I'm making the tips darker and the inside layer and other ones I'm going to do the reverse and there's not a real science to this I'm just doing whatever comes into my mind at the time so don't stress out about trying to make it all perfect just fill it with flowers and flowers come in so many different shapes and sizes nobody's going to know if it's not an exact replica of a particular flower. So these little guys I'm adding a bunch of different types of you know just little frondy type of I'm not sure frondy is a word just little little petals all over the place and later on I'm going to go back and add some stems in some of these too because some of them sort of feel like they need a little extra stem going with them. The Copic Friendly Ink from Lawn Fawn I have a whole bunch of the little cube sets and that stuff works really well I can go right over top of it and sort of smooth things out and they work really well together you can also use some Copic over top of Distress Ink I would just allow it to dry first so don't use it when it's really fresh and wet but I have used them occasionally in combination with Copic markers. You can also use a bunch of the Shadow Inks from Hero Arts and other companies that are that make inks like those will often work with something like this but for me I just chose the really light color so if you have a good selection of light pinks then you can make a pink card I just didn't have light pinks but of course I have yellows because that's what is always in my collection at all times right so that little flower got a fancy center to it and you can do fancy centers on some and simpler ones on others on these I'm gonna add little little tiny centers on each one of those little flowers to add a little bit more detail to them and now I'm gonna go for this big one and with each one of these the only thought that's running through my mind is do I want the flower to get bigger than what it is or do I want to stay kind of within the shape that's already stamped there from the stamp set and I decided I was going to stay within it for this one you can also take your markers and close up that center and make smaller centers on some bigger centers on others and you could even decide you're gonna just stamp a whole bunch of one of these and make a bouquet out of one of the flower shapes and do them all in different colors maybe do that particular flower and do some in in bright pinks and blues and greens yellows I just saw a beautiful bouquet at my grocery store with those Gerbera daisies Gerbera Gerbera daisies in the store and they were just beautiful they're always like crazy electric colors but they were really gorgeous and happy and they might be a really cheerful bouquet so you can do that with a lot of different colors and here I made one with just little tufts on each one of that little bit of green so didn't even worry about making them look like flowers I was just trying to come up with all sorts of different shapes for flowers and greenery on this to create as many different little different little detailed flowers as I possibly could because I think when my friend gets this she's gonna be in love with all of the different flowers here now this one seemed more like it might be some sort of an aster or a daisy the center portion of it so I'm stretching that yellow out beyond where it was stamped and then I'll take another marker and just kind of go out from the center and reinforce some of that shadow going into the middle there and then take a middle color and blend it out just a little bit but I'm not worried about my blending being perfect either I'm just trying to make all of these look like flowers so I have a whole flower background on my card add a little detail to the center portion of this one and then move on to another flower this one I decided to just use the tip of the marker to create a little point on each one of these little little do-jobbies and those fit with some of the greeneries by the way so when I stamped it it you could make it fit right on top of the little branch but I decided to stamp them all separately so each thing would just be very very different from each other one here I created one with more distinct petals and then up here I've got this guy I'm gonna I'm gonna do the little fronds that I did down below but since they're on a different different type of branch they look a little bit different and at this point my eye is jumping around and trying to figure out are there any flowers that need to be small because sometimes it's fun to have a real difference in size on a background like this so I might even add more flowers if I need to just draw in an extra one if there's a white space squinting at something will often help you to see whether or not everything is filled in well or not and now I went to my greens because there's a bunch of these that need a little bit more on the greenery because the stems are meant to layer with the leaves and since I didn't layer them and there's some like this one I added extra little flowers to so I want to make sure that I add a little details here and there as well and I'll flip it around and add more stems between some of the leaves that are here if there's any of my flowers that look like they need a little leaf or this one needs a whole branch can just draw that in real simply and I'm using a really light green so really no big deal to go over something if I mess it up even that's one of the good things about Copics is that colorless blender covers a myriad of things so I'm just about where I'm wanting all of my different parts looking around there's a stem here that flower looks like it needs a little something and then I realize I hadn't hit too much of the top yet fill in fill in I've got a little spot right here where I think I need another leaf and perhaps that little flower should be connected some of this I just like to connect to the outside of the card so I'm just looking to see if there's anything around the outside edge or I can make a branch that's just peeking in I could have gone back and stamped another one of the little leaf stamps around those edges just to fill in some of those spots but it's easy enough once I've gotten used to it to just throw in a couple branches here and there and attach my rose I think that's a rose or peony or something that's what it is since I drew it it's gonna be whatever it is since I am not a botanist to know in great detail about all those things little empty spot here looked like it needed a little bit of greenery maybe another one right here and just sort of playing around with it make sure you don't go overboard there will come a point where you might get a little bit too far so be careful and don't get too fussy with it can fill all of these in and I'm really excited about the stamp set by the way if you haven't noticed that a lot of people are excited about it on this blog hop there are tons of people involved they're all gonna be telling you their stories and I don't have a personal breast cancer story I have been blessed that my family has been healthy and we have not had to suffer through that knock on wood hate to even say that out loud because you know how that goes but I do have many friends who have been touched by it and I just think we need to find a cure for it I think we really do I'm tired of having diseases that keep keep coming back and keep wrecking lives and taking people off this earth who should be here but doing charity work like this makes me feel like I'm at least doing something I'm making a difference in some kind of a way and that sometimes is the only thing it's gonna get us through the day we could lose hope very easily if we don't take some action and this is one of those things that I'm gonna do to take some action and you can see on the blog I'm doing my own fundraiser oh by the way I'm coloring the dye here because I'm gonna insert the dye and then my friend can do whatever she wants with the ribbon she can hang it on her bullet board or whatever if she'd like to and it's also yellow so that it will remind her it's from me but from my blog I am doing a fundraiser where for every comment on my blog as well as every pin of my card I'm going to donate a dollar to the cause and it's gonna be expensive but I'm gonna do it so go and help me to decide how much it's gonna be by leaving a comment and go pin the card and then I will get together after a week and calculate all the numbers and see how much I will be giving away to the breast cancer research foundation so there's my finished card and the little ribbon that's going to insert on the inside of it very excited to see what my friend says and see if it helps her to feel better because that is the goal of a wonderful card isn't it so go check out the blog hop and make sure you pick up one of these stamp sets remember $25 is going to breast cancer research foundation if you buy the stamp set so go do it be generous and make a donation as well on top of that if you're able thank you very much and I'll see you another time bye bye