Hi, crafty friends. There’s a new release at Lili of the Valley. There are a few different girls, quite a few florals and a quartet of party animals. If you know me, it’s no secret that I started with the party animals. The Party animal penguin, to be exact. There’s also a cute highland cow, a bunny and a chimp.

I actually didn’t start with the coloring on this one. I printed the image on a quarter sheet of X-Press It blending card, which is what I always use for Copic coloring. I put a circle mask on top of the penguin, then used the Hurra stencil from Create a smile and some inks from Concord & 9th to create my background. I used Sweet Pea, Clementine and Buttercup, creating a gradient between the three colors. Once I took the stencil off, the white of the background felt a bit stark, so I went in with the 1″ blender brushes from Pinkfresh Studio and did a soft blend of the background using the same three colors.

Once I removed the mask, it was time to color the penguin. I used Copics, went for a pretty bright palette and added a bit of black glaze pen to the eyes, then a dot with a white Sharpie on top once the black was dry. This gives the eyes a bit of shine.

I used the largest die in the Double Stitched Rectangles die set from My Favorite Things to cut my panel down slightly. It also adds a fun stitching detail to the edge. I then adhered my panel to a top fold card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I used a sticker from Kort & Godt for my sentiment. I like my sentiments with some dimension, and to get dimension with stickers, I first use antistatic powder on the back to remove the stickyness, then add foam tape. I finished off the card very simply with some clear dew drops from Concord & 9th. There was so much color going on, I thought clear was the best option.

I used quite a few Copics for this, but that hat alone needed quite a few.