Dina Kowal Creative: My Sweet Petunia and Unity swap hop!

Friday, May 26, 2017

My Sweet Petunia and Unity swap hop!

I'm so thankful to be a part of a community that thrives on relationship and encouragement! It's so fun to be a guest in a joint blog hop with two companies that really live this out. Today I'm hopping with designers from Unity Stamp Co. and My Sweet Petunia! Keep reading for more info on how YOU could win a prize from one of these two companies!

If you just happened on the blog hop today because you're a regular reader of my blog, and you'd like to view the entire hop, you can start back at the My Sweet Petunia blog - you'll find a full list of participants there, and all the details you need. If you're already hopping and you arrived here from Maria Levine's blog, you're doing just fine.

My samples are all colored using Chameleon Color Tone pencils, since I have a set here to review! It was nice to have such beautiful images to work with as I took the pencils through their paces. I also wanted to be sure to showcase how the stamps could be used with the MISTI, so I used a different technique with each of my cards. Here we go!

This is Grace Girl, a new addition to Angie Blom's signature line - I colored the image using a single pencil - the Color Tone pencils are double-ended, with a light and dark tone. For the background, I masked off the image, and positioned the sentiment stamp from the set toward the center of my MISTI.

Each time I inked the sentiment, I moved the panel, stamping at even intervals to create a background. While the image was still masked, I brushed some of the same ink around the image to give it a warm glow.

This second image (Grace Upon Grace) is by Phyllis Harris, one of my favorite stamp artists! I used the MISTI to stamp the image in a dark brown ink, then moved the panel over about 1/4" and stamped in a light grey. This gave me a shadow to work with, and accentuated those gorgeous curls and the details of the fern branch.

I colored in the image in a loose, scribbly style. I love working this way - it's a little more abstract and fun.

For my third card, I blended the pencils with mineral spirits. This snail is the main image for a huge and wonderful sentiment set (Happy Snail Mail) that has all kinds of sayings for mail art, belated cards, and everything in between. This background is a Watercolor Imprint technique I've been working on - I'll share a tutorial on that in a month or two. This was one of my practice panels that was within reach, and I was so happy that it matched!

I wanted the snail image to be sort of 'borderless' so I used a light ink, but I also wanted his little eyes and antennaes to show. After stamping, I left the stamp in my MISTI so I could restamp in the exact same place. When I was done coloring, I put the panel back, and inked up just the eyes and antennaes with a black marker.

I love that little trick - it really gives life to a borderless image!

Now for the fun stuff - thanks for hanging with me this far!

Be sure to leave a comment on my blog and on the blogs of the rest of my friends below (look at them all - what a lot of talent in one list!!) Everyone who leaves a comment on all the blogs in the hop will be entered in a drawing for 3 prize packs from Unity and winner's choice of an Original or Mini MISTI from My Sweet Petunia! Please comment by May 30th at noon Central to be eligible. Winners will be posted on both the Unity Blog and the My Sweet Petunia blog on May 31st, so be sure to check back.

Thank you again for visiting me!

Thanks for stopping by!