Copic Coloring Mistake Gone Right

Have you seen the new Caffeinated Dragon from The Rabbit Hole Designs yet?! He is so cute. (If you’re a fan of the caffeinated critters, you are going to need the whole release this month!) Coloring him was an adventure. I stamped him in black ink and colored him with Copic markers like I often do. Originally, he was a bright, true blue, with yellow accents, including the top of his wings. Big mistake; it didn’t look right. The tops of the wings really needed to be blue. But blue and orange (my shadow color) are opposites, they make mud if you mix them. 🙁

I almost scrapped him, but in the back of my mind, I could hear Kelly Letavola saying, “I ain’t startin’ over” and I remembered Kathy Racoosin’s tip to be fearless.  So I went for it and colored right over the yellows and orange with the blue markers I used for his body. It worked! Well, I couldn’t get the true blue, it was a blue green, but it wasn’t mud. And it was actually pretty cool! The colors really pop and seem to have a ton of dimension. It was a happy accident, a mistake gone right! Then, his body needed a quick once over with E50 to create a teal tint to match the wings. After I cut him out with my ScanNCut and added Aqua Shimmer highlights to his eyelid and mug, and a coat of Diamond Glaze to his eyeball and mug, he was ready for a card.

This guy turned out so cool, he needed to be enjoying his coffee in a really cool setting. And what’s cooler than a magical castle? Especially, if you’re a dragon, right? I die cut a box card, then castle pieces, and some grass, all in shades of teal to coordinate with him. Since I don’t have a cloud stencil, I used a die to make my own. Then I inked up cloudy backgrounds to adhere behind the castle, and on the back side of the card, so I’d have a nice light area to write my sentiment later. 

I decorated the side flaps with embossed caffeine molecules. The front flap has an embossed sentiment on a fishtail banner, with the die cut word COFFEE layered on top. I cut it out of white glitter paper to add extra sparkle. The dragon is pretty large, and instead of tucking him down lower in the grass, so the card would fit into an A2 envelope, I allowed him to stick up, and opted to pair this card with a 6″ square envelope. A few flat-backed gems finish the card.