Petunia Frame Sympathy Card and Design Team Introduction

Hello! My name is Seleise and I'm pleased to join the Pickled Potpourri Design Team. I'll be popping in each month with a project or two and some tips and tricks too!

So, you may be wondering what I bring to the craft table... I've been papercrafting for at least a dozen years and have been crafting my whole life. I learned how to hand quilt with my mom and grandma when I was a little girl so fabric and old-fashioned pieced quilts will always have a special place in my heart. Another phase of my crafting life involved the glue gun! For a time, anything that could be hot glued together, was hot glued together. It was kind of awesome! And, yes, I still burn myself but can't quite say good-bye to that awesome tool. Cross-stitching, soap-making, candle-making, craft sewing, craft painting (so not good at it at all!), vinyl, jewelry making, clay and finally papercrafting - you name it, I've tried most of it. And, it's all so awesome! Not so good for the budget but hey - it's therapy, right?! And, I've turned it into a business so making my hobby work for me is a good thing.

On the money side, sometimes you "need" something new but the pocketbook is a little light. Digis (digital images) are a great way to stretch the budget as you can get so many different images and make them so many different sizes that it gives you added flexibility for just a few dollars.

I have to admit that when I started paper-crafting, it kind of took over my life. I still do bits of the other but mostly everything involves paper and stamps in one way or another. I demo'd for a couple of papercrafting companies and now am focusing on craft fairs and card sales and playing with the stamps and digi files that I own. That's what makes being a design team member for Pickled Potpourri so great as I've been a customer and now I get to share images that I love working with and share the awesome ways you can use digis!

I'm going to start with a straightforward use. I downloaded the image, inserted the image into Word, adjusted it to the size I wanted and printed it on copic friendly white cardstock. So now to explain more about why I chose this image.

I make a lot of sympathy cards. When I saw the Petunia Frame image, I knew it would be perfect for a sympathy card. The beauty of working with digital is that you can adjust the size of the image to fit your project and can mimic stamping by adding a sentiment from another set to the digital image before you print it on your cardstock. Rose Sentiments had the perfect, simple "with sympathy" that I wanted to share the message but not take away from the beauty of the gorgeous petunia and scrollwork.

I also wanted an image that was copic coloring friendly. Using a laserjet printer, the image is ready to go as soon as it is printed. Using an inkjet printer, you may have to heat-set the image or emboss it to make it copic-friendly.

Petunia Frame was colored with the following copics: R01, R02, R05, YG93, YG95, YG97, W2 and W6. The outline was done in R01. I like to start with the lightest color in each color family and then start adding shadows with the middle shade and fill in the deepest part of the shadow with the darkest shade. I then go back over with the lightest color and blend the shadowing. If I take off too much of the shadows, I go back in and add some depth again. Now, I'm not a trained artist, I've just been practicing. My process is just to color how I like it to look - it's not perfect and it doesn't always follow the rules for which flowers grow in which colors. I figure it's artistic license and face it - it's fun not to be limited.

So, that's my story and I hope if you haven't tried digis, that you now give them a try. And, what better place to start than with the wonderful images on Pickled Potpourri.

Have a wonderfully creative day!
Seleise