look what lives at my house...

Yep, that's right - Copic markers! I do have to say, I have been watching this new brand of marker trend pretty closely and very skeptically. I am not a marker person at all - I don't own very many, but I was liking the results I was seeing by Mish, Debbie, and a bunch of other stampers out there who are using them. To be honest - this marker seemed like a too good to be true kind of thing. It was like I could touch the paper and amazing things would happen. But, I wasn't going to put the money into something like this without being absolutely convinced.

A couple of friends of mine picked up some markers at an art supply store in St. Paul. One loved the results and the other ended up returning hers. I started thinking that these markers must be the kind of thing that you either love or hate...

When I went down to CHA in Chicago, we stopped at my friend Lana's house. She has the Copics and loves them. I sat down and scribbled a bit with them and convinced myself that I did NOT need them. They didn't work the way I envisioned at all - it felt like a plain old marker.

At CHA we stopped by the booth to check them out again. There was a large crowd watching the demonstration and the owner was answering questions. I watched some more - I saw some techniques and tools that you can use with the markers, like the airbrush system and how to blend. I got a free sample marker and went on my way.

Next came the retreat and look what Joy from Eclectic Paperie (on the left and that's Lisa Zappa on the right) brought for us to play with...

Cindy showed us a few tips and tricks she has learned...

I kept watching and them towards the end of the weekend I sat down to give them another try.

The markers take patience and time and there definitely is a learning curve - but you know what? I am in love. And I don't say that about just any coloring technique. Once you play with how to blend the Copics, you will fall in love too. I really love Mish's tutorial she posted on her blog here. It really helped me to understand the whole blending technique. I think everyone who works with Copics will also have the way that works for them. The best way to know is to play and experiment.

So then it came to deciding what colors to go with... I knew that I wanted to get light and dark tones of each hue plus the colorless blender. I went through the charts that Joy brought and picked out the hues that I like working with: a red, and orange, a yellow, a green, a blue, a purple, some browns, a skin tone, and a gray to shade around images with. Then I went back and picked lighter shades that would work for blending. You can see all of the numbers of the colors I chose on the pen caps in the first picture. I ended up ordering 25 markers (plus I have my free marker from CHA) and the 36 case so that I could fill in the gaps. I knew that once I started coloring, I would know what other colors I was going to need and so gave myself a little growing room. I ordered all of my markers from Eclectic Paperie.

Here are some of the results of the coloring I did the day I got my Copics...

I think I did pretty good at picking out my color choices. There are a couple of blending combinations that I will need to purchase another shade for. But, overall, I have a good start. Now to get these cute images made into something...

Stop by again when the Papertrey sets are released this weekend - I used my Copics for a couple of my projects...!