Crazy Week & Copic Craze

What a long a crazy week we have had! Two hour delays on Monday and Tuesday, early dismissal on Wednesday, Thursday through Saturday AM OMEA (Ohio Music Education Association) Professional Development Conference, hanging out with Jeff's family on Saturday afternoon and evening and finally some time at home on Sunday after church....oh yeah, and SNOW!

Convention was so different for me this year. I went to a few interesting sessions, but didn't have much that really that impressed me. (I'm so difficult.) I enjoyed very much finding music materials for early childhood - infant through toddler - since I and many of my friends have children at this age. I have been disappointed with the lack of opportunity in this area for young children when it comes to classes offered, so I purchased a curriculum written by John H. Feierabend entitled First Steps in Music for Infants and Toddlers, which is a collection of 20 years of research on the part of the author to find childrens' music which is in danger of being lost to the ages. ( Folksongs, nursery rhymes, etc.) The curriculum consists of an instruction guide, CD's and motor skill specific books for particular activities and songs. I also purchased some super cute jazz story books, which include equally adorable jazz CD's with genre appropriate pieces of music based on standards. (Louis Lion, Duck Ellington, Charlie Bird, Ella Elephant) VERY COOL! I'll stop here with this, but if you have any questions concerning any of these materials feel free to leave me a comment and I will get back with you.

Onto the copic craze...I was finally bitten by the copic (CO-pic) bug. I decided to at least try the copics since they seem to be all the rage lately. I kept telling myself that I couldn't justify the $$$ I would be spending considering that I have watercolor pencils, gamsol, colored pencils, watercolors, sparkling H2o's and the entire collection of SU markers for coloring. I hate to color. It always tends to look...crappy and juvenile. (With that said, I love Liam's coloring. lol!)

Due to the extensive selection of markers and the need to coordinate colors for the best coloring and shading options, I decided to cut my time and stress by ordering the preselected Riley set of Ciao Copics from Hanna Stamps and a couple of Riley stamps to experiment. This set was specifically designed to be used with the adorable Riley moose stamps with browns, tans, grays and a pink. Perfect!

Riley and his markers arrived while I was away at my conference...incidentally, the temps got down to -19 F this week with even lower wicked wind chills. I was slightly nervous that my markers would be in bad shape when I finally got to them. No problem at all. A little cold but perfectly fluid. I just got a chance to sit down and play with them today. OMG! I used to hate to color...I love it! Everything simply looks better. It is more vibrate, even and rich. There is definitely a learning curve involved here, but with experimentation and Copic product specialist Marianne's blog (I Like Markers) I think this will be an absolutely wonderful upgrade to my stamping.

Here is a pic of my first copic colored card. I am sure I will look back on this and laugh or gag someday, but at this point, I am pretty darn happy. This Riley is usually sporting a shamrock on his hat and a stout in his hand, but in lue of Valentine's Day I used the heart from an alphabet set to fit the upcoming holiday a bit better.

Update: Kristi Ferro, owner of Hanna Stamps, featured this card on her blog on today. To use a quote by Julie HRR, "....THUD!" I would also like to give a shout out to Kristi for her wonderful personal customer service. I had a question and it was answered promptly and professionally.

Supplies
Stamps: Riley (Hanna Stamps), Heart Prints (PTI), In the Loop Alphabet (SU)
Ink: Palette Noir
Paper: Kitchen (Amuse), White, Pink Pirouette
Accessories: Stardust Gel Pen, White Gel Pen, Threading Water Punch, Nestabilities, Word Window Punch, Copics, Silver Thread, Heart Eyelets