Copic Pen Tray & Lid - Free Download

It has been a while since I blogged, so much has been going on in life mixed in with several anxiety and depression flare ups that I've found it hard to keep up with blogging. Trying to deal with the the stress that is part of the problem I have signed up to the Kit & Clowder Colouring Classes, I'm finding colouring is an excellent way of clearing my mind and relaxing, when I colour I seem to just focus on the colouring, my mind goes quiet and all the things I've been stressing about melt into the background enough to stop my stomach churning and the anxiety bubbling.

Those of you who read my blog will know that earlier this year I started collecting Copic pens, back in February I had 36, I now have 95 and I think Santa may be bringing me some more if I'm lucky! The more pens I acquired the more storage became a problem, initially I bought one of the Crafters Companion racks, but at £18 (the cost of several pens), I was chatting to Simon about it and once again like with my 3D printed Distress Marker Storage he went away and came back a couple of days later with a pen tray suitable for copic's.💖 Now keep in mind initially due to cost I was only going to collect Copic Ciao pens due to the cost, Ciao's are the cheapest option of all the Copic's sold, but sadly they only do 180 colours in the Ciao range and there are 358 colours in total.

The lovely Alyce from Kit & Clowder told me I would end up with some Sketches when she messaged me to chat about the classes and I laughed to myself and said "no way!", but guess what? Yup that's right I now have 5 Copic Sketch pens and more will be on the horizon. Initially Simon designed and printed the racks in my CCO (Copic Ciao Only) phase of my collection, you can see the Mark I version behind the lidded version in the photo.

The Copic only tray holds 6 pens, I'm now using that for my gel and glaze pens and glitter markers, the new trays only have 5 slots because Copic Sketch pens are wider than Ciao. I don't have any Copic Classic pens to see if they will fit, so we don't know the height and dimension of the Classic pens to know if they will fit, so if you are going to print the files please be aware that the Copic Classic pens may not fit! When I get a Copic Classic or can get someone to tell me the dimensions Simon has said he will do a revised file to print a tray that will accommodate all 3 sizes if Mark II doesn't fit them all. If and when that happens I will update this post.

I shared the Mark I pen rack in the Kit & Clowder Facebook Group and lots of people were interested, a few asked if Simon could print some for them but on the 3D printers he has each tray in the rack takes almost 8 hours to print, he does have 3 printers but it would still take time. That said if anyone out there doesn't have access to a 3D printer and doesn't mind the wait leave me a comment and I will get back to you and see what we can work out.  For those that do have access to a 3D printer, my hubby has given me his files to share, if you share them please credit them to Simon Cook @ Cooks Cards & Crafts thank you!

Copic Pen Tray Mark I - 6 Slots, fits Copic Ciao Pens ONLY!!! Also good for Sakura Gel & Glaze Pens.
Copic Pen Tray Mark II - 5 Slots fits Copic Sketch and Copic Ciao Pens.
Copic Pen Tray Lid - Fits both the Mark I and Mark II pen trays.

Excuse the silly smile of pride, but this is me after spending and hour colouring in a stamped image with my Copic pens 😍 Early in the day that this photo was taken I had a bad anxiety attack, but after an hours colouring not only was I calmer, but I was happy!

I've stepped on the colouring ladder, and thanks to Alyce I no longer feel that I can only share my colouring if its "Perfect", because I don't have to be perfect, I just have to keep colouring and each time I do my colouring and shading will get better. BUT every thing I colour is my best work EVER at the time of creation and I've learnt that I should celebrate ever piece of colouring I do like its a work of art and stop putting a shadow of perfection on it and say things like "I know the shading isn't right" or "my effort isn't as good as yours... blah blah".

Because every effort is our best effort, every try is a step in the right direction, colouring is something that evolves and the biggest part of the process is just relaxing in to it and going with the flow of the ink. Signing up to the Kit & Clowder classes has been one of the best things I have done for me in a very long time, the support from Alyce and within the group is tremendous, she goes above and beyond and does all she can to support the person doing her classes and not just provide colouring tuition. Take a look at some of the classes Alyce offers. I've started off with the free Marker 101 class and now have the Nov and Dec 2019 classes to work on. Colouring is therapy of the best kind if you just go with it, and learn not to beat yourself up with perfection, or tar yourself with the I can't do this brush, because you can and every thing you colour will show you that a little at a time.

Mew Are Pawsome - Time For Tea Designs

Just before my holiday back in may my lovely crafting buddy Shabneez posted a card she'd made with an adorable stamp set from Time for Tea Designs called Mew Are Pawsome, my inner crazy cat lady (who am I kidding its outer and all over lol) was smitten and I ordered the stamp set and co-ordinating dies, Joanna who owns TFTD was on holiday when I placed my order and I got an email to tell me this and explain my order would be sent once she was back off her hols. As I was going on mine at the time I thought no more of it and went away, happy in the knowledge that the stamps would be with me when I got back off my holidays.

When I arrived home as I expected my order was waiting for me, but inside there was a little note from Joanna and a free rubber stamp to say thank you for waiting for my order, which was a lovely touch, even though I hadn't been waiting. I love small companies because they offer personal service and the customer matters, suffice to say TFTD went on my radar thanks to Shabneez. I'd been so busy since I got back off my holidays I hadn't had time to play with the stamp set though which was bugging me, so yesterday after I had finished making a birthday card for my dad and a couple of Father's Day cards - I'll post photos of them after Sunday when the recipients have received them - I sat down and created the above cards just because, I needed to play with something where I wasn't worrying about getting things finished by a set date.

TTFD released 4 new stencils earlier in June and the designs are fab, plus they had a special offer to get all 4 for a reduced price of £12, I think its gone up to £16 now, its still a saving but I got a real bargain. I've only used one so far the 'Sunny Side Up' stencil which I think is going to be one of my most used stencils in the future, as well as the sun in the centre, the stencil has 4 other sides:- a straight edge, clouds, grass and hills all perfect for creating scenes. I used the clouds and grass on the background for the father's day cards I mentioned earlier 😉

I used water colour card and distress inks to create the background. The images I stamped and coloured with Copic Ciao's, I don't have lots of colours yet so I'm limited as to how I can blend the pens, but I am thrilled with them, I know they are an expense, but I really wish I'd saved money when I started buying cheaper pens that just don't do the job and just gone for Copic's in the first place, in the long run I would have saved money, and have lots more colours to boot lol!

To finish off the card I added a few gems from Little Things from Lucy's Cards, I love the gems and pearls that Lucy sells, it was via Jennifer McGuire that I discovered Lucy's Cards gems and I was surprised to find that Lucy was based in the UK, so now I order all my gem treasure from Lucy, she does sequins, pearls, gems and tiny confetti which is perfect for adding to shaker cards. The sentiment is also from the Mew are Pawsome set, I just stamped it on to a strip of white cardstock with some Gina K Amalgam ink and cut the end to form a fish tail.

The second card I created using one of our Wreath Templates to make a circular 'rocker' card, using my Tim Holtz Stamping Platform and a 6" template. I stamped lots of the smaller images from the TFTD 'Mew are Pawsome' set with Gina K Amalgam ink and coloured them with my Copic pens. I find colouring very relaxing and therapeutic to do, again I wish I had more colours but I'm happy with what I've achieved.

Once I'd die cut the circles and layered everything up I finished the card off by adding a little shimmer pen to the balloons and cupcake icing and a little white gel pen detail to the balloons and cat. My stroke of genius for this card was to use a red Sakura Glaze pen for the centre of the candle to make it more flame like. This stamp set is going to get a heck of a lot of use, and I can't wait to use the other stencils I got from TFTD, watch this space.

Just Mermazing

Warm sunshine greetings everyone that takes the time to have a read of my blog, I truly appreciate you stopping by and love reading your comments on the posts I make, it makes me feel like I'm not alone 😘
I use this blog like a kind of journal, for every day stuff occasionally, but mostly for my crafting stuff because it helps me remember how I did something and more importantly WHEN I did it which is useful as projects go like this one.

I made the backgrounds on these cards at the beginning of April, I needed to do something crafty but as seems to happen a lot lately I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to do, so I got out some bits and just had a play. Having acquired a new stencil at the time I decided that I wanted to play with my VersaFine Clair inks using them for blending techniques rather than just for stamping.

Stupid I know but I've only recently realised that you can do blending and smooshing with inks other that Distress Inks and Oxides lol! So I made several backgrounds like this using a different combination of colours and put them to one side. I tried adding some big bold sentiments to them but it didn't look right, so they went in my maybe someday box along with some other panels I made during the same fiddling and faffing session that used a new Stampin Up stencil, VersaFine Clair inks again, and some Nuvo 'Moonstone' Glimmer Paste.

I used a My Favorite Things stamp set called "Mermazing" to stamp the cute little mermaids and the seaweed bits behind the sentiment, but I haven't got the matching die set so I had to fussy cut the mermaids out the best I could, I then went around the edge with a Memento Tuxedo Black marker pen, but I'm jumping ahead. I coloured the mermaids with some Copic Ciao pens, I started collecting them back in February and have 36 so far and the colourless blender, I tried to get some basic shades that are close together but I still have much more to learn about using them and there are another 143 pens to get, although I don't have to get them all, but I most probably will lol!

I've tried using Nuvo Alcohol markers which depending in the cardstock used with them work really well and blend well to, but there are not so many colours in the Nuvo markers I think I have about 60 and they recently released 2 x 3 colour blend sets that I haven't got yet. I've also used Promarkers, again I don't have many about 45 and not a good mix for all round, as I did with my wax based pencils recently, I'm going to stamp several of the same images on a variety of card stocks and see which set I like.

I also have about 2-3 sets of Spectrum Noir markers that I got when I first started experimenting with colouring but I didn't get on with them so they sit in a box. I'm wondering now if its the card stock I used at the time and think that when I do the comparison I'll add them to the list. The whole point of my comparison tests and subsequent posts is to help me decide which products to keep and which to say goodbye to. I now have so much stuff and new things keep coming out that I need to thin things out because I just haven't got the space to keep buying new products and keeping the old ones.

I had heard lots of crafters rave about Copic's but they were so very out of my price range initially because the ones I saw came in sets that were rather pricey, but I've found a place online that sells them for less than £2 each, so I can buy a few at a time. I do love the way the Copic Ciao pens blend together, they are so smooth, if you click on the mermaid above you can see that I've smudged my colouring a little and gone in to areas with the darker colours that I'm not supposed to and I haven't got the hang of shading with them yet, but I'm getting there.

It could also be that I haven't got the right shades to blend, that sounds odd but lots of my pens are very close together on the shade chart and I've recently read that there should be about 3 numbers apart to blend well. I'll get the hang of it with time and I'm hoping to take some online colouring classes over the next few months to help me improve with my copic colouring and pencil colouring. I've also just started collecting Polychromos pencils so I want to learn how to use them better.

To create my backgrounds was very simple to do I laid the stencil on to the front of the card blank and used a couple of Creative Expressions Smoothies to add colour through the stencil until I was happy with the colours I used only VersaFine Clair inks on these backgrounds as I mentioned above Warm Breeze, Verdant & Paradise for the green one and Purple Delight, Charming Pink and a little Fantasia for the pink and purple versions.

I cut 3 panels using one of my favourite stitched oval sets from Craft Stash and used black 'Nocturne' VersaFine Clair ink to stamp the sentiments. I added the seaweed with a selection of the same colours mentioned above on each colour card then used some glue to attach a small section of the mermaid to the sentiment panel and then added 3D foam pads to the panel and mermaid to attach to the card. The final touch was to add 3 small clusters of tiny gems to the cards and they were complete. I wound up feeling relaxed and creative when I'd sat down not knowing what to create and feeling a bit daunted, this seems to be happening the more my stash expands, with lots of things you'd think crafting with it all would be easy? Unfortunately I end up feeling overwhelmed and not nothing what to use or try, another reason to start thinning things out a little!

I'm still working on the samples for my oval beauty brush test post, hopefully that will come soon, I have my youngest nephew staying next week, so I won't get as much crafting time, but I don't mind, he likes cooking and growing things and gaming, so I'll be kept busy for sure lol!