Mailbox in Red

"The boy" forgot to give the bus driver her Christmas gift. Of course, I sent it in on the last day before Christmas break so there were no second chances. I didn't want to give her an ornament and Christmas music in January so I decided to give her a Valentine's treat. Instead of working at the last minute as I usually do, I was determined to give this to her no later than today. Notice that I said I was going to give it to her. After the fiasco this morning with the Card Castle ceiling, I didn't think I would finish in time, but I made it with about 5 minutes to spare. She is a very sweet lady and I appreciate how good she does her job.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to do more for her, but I made this mailbox and card for her.
The Hero Arts cupcakes are stamped on the red and white splatter paper and colored in markers on the box. The cupcake is paper pieced on the card. I added glitter to the hearts on each cupcake.

This is a very small gift card sized card ( 2 3/4 x 3 3/4).
The boys are by Penny Black and colored in Prismacolors. The "from both of us" is Biblical Impressions.
I used Real Red Dye ink for both. The Boys were stamped in Walnut Stain Distress ink.




Not that there would be a postage stamp in the mailbox flag, but I used the Stamp Paper edgers and a square punch to make a faux stamp for the flag on this one.

I didn't decorate my candy inside. I bought the ones with the seasonal wrappers. If I were on the receiving end, I wouldn't want to mess up all the prettiness by eating the candy...ok, I would mess up the prettiness, and I would still eat the candy, but I'd feel bad that I messed up the pretty. This way I saved her all the guilt. Isn't that nice of me??




I used the Copic colorless blender to smooth out the pencil lines. I normally use the colorless blender pencil, but I was in a hurry and this goes much faster. You can still see a little of the texture, but it gives it a nice smoothness. The first picture was just coloring and layering colors. I didn't have a brown for their skin down here when I colored it, so I added it just before I blended, but after I took the first picture. You can mainly see the difference in the blue jeans and the red shirt. The lighting was a little different too. Anyway, I love the Copic colorless blender to use with the pencils, but I took back the rest of the markers-- both the Copics and the Prismacolors. I like them ok, but I really do already have -ahem- several markers... no several sets of markers ...actually several hundrends of dollars worth of markers-- that I don't often use. If I started with the expensive ones, I would have to practice a lot and spend a lot of money getting all the colors. I was dying to try it and now I'm over it. I promised my pencils that I wouldn't abandon them. There I go doing another nice thing today.

ETA: I first learned that the Copic Colorless Blender would blend color pencils on another blog Talk to the Ham. I assumed that it would work as good as the Prismacolor marker. It's been several years since I had a Prismacolor Marker blender so I kinda forgot that it didn't work too well. I wanted to try the Copic marker to see how that compares.
I finally got around to trying it and it works great for quick blending. Actually I've played with it just enough to know I liked it and it's quicker than using the colorless blender pencil. I haven't done the water color look, although based on what I did, I'm sure it will work. I don't know how much the refill for the Copic blender marker costs. That's something I'll have to look into. I do know that this could be considered expensive compared to the Gamsol per ounce. But if you are like me you have a room full of tools and supplies for a technique that you may only use once a year, getting the marker vs the OMS and blending stumps is an option. If you are Sue Nelson, and you go thru a gallon of OMS a week, obviously that would be a cheaper way to go.
So far, I like the control with the marker vs the blending stumps. I'm not a big fan of the OMS technique, but to be honest, I didn't practice enough with the blending stumps to really get the hang of it. I'll keep you posted as I practice more.

I need to get back to my dusting and cleaning. Have a blessed weekend!!!