Hello! It’s time for another A Perfect Time To Craft Challenge and this month we welcome Dr Digi as our sponsor. I think he just has some of the best comical digital stamps available!
For my inspiration, I’ve used Building Buddies and a simple clip art tree to create a scene that’s overlaid onto a digital background from The Hungry Jpeg’s Christmas Clipart, Christmas Graphics & Illustrations Kit. I simply digitally removed the backgrounds from the Building Buddies and tree images, overlaid them onto the snowy background, sized the whole panel to 4.5×6.5 inches and printed it onto X-Press It Blending Cardstock. I use this technique a lot because it’s such a great time saver and it’s a great way to combine digital and hand colouring in the one project.
I coloured the image with Chameleon pens and added extra shading with the Chameleon Fineliners. I love how easy these fineliners make any addition shading, particularly in the smaller areas. Just a quick blend out with a damp brush is all it takes to get a smooth blend over the alcohol marker base. Once dry, I die cut the feature and a second panel of white cardstock with Sue Wilson Noble Double Pierced Rectangles. I also cut a piece of navy card as an additional matting layer to add between the two die cut panels.
I wanted some sort of glittery effect on the card so I decided to add silver Nuvo Embellishment Mousse to the outer edges of the larger die cut panel and allowed it to dry before gluing it directly to a 5″×7″ card base. I followed that with the navy blue panel and finished the matting with my feature panel.
For the sentiment, I decided to continue the shimmer of the Nuvo Embellishment Mousse across and, after applying the shimmer to a scrap piece of cardstock and letting it dry, I die cut a rustic tag using the Sizzix/Tim Holtz Planks Die Set. I then picked a quirky silver peel off sticker and added it, and a couple of extra stars to the plank tag.
I wanted to colour the insides of the letters but wasn’t sure if it would ruin the mousse or what to use to do that colouring. I decided to try my Zig Clean Color Brush Pens and they not only worked well over the mousse, they allowed the mousse shimmer to shine through! Now I know that I can extend the colour range of my mousse with just a quick overlay of my Zig Clean Color Brush Pens and I would assume that any brush markers would work the same way. However, I would be hesitant to try the same thing using a pen with a regular foam nib/tip, simply because the foam may lift the mousse off as it rubs over the surface and irreparably contaminate the tip of the nib. I simply rubbed the brush tip off on some scratch paper to remove any potential traces left in the brush before putting it away. As the Nuvo Embellishment Mousse is a water based medium, I would definitely not use my alcohol markers to add any colour.
Once I had coloured the peel off letters and stars and it had dried, I blotted off any excess colour left on the surface of the peel offs by laying a facial tissue over the plank tag and pressed down firmly. I made sure that I didn’t rub the area, the last thing I needed at this stage was to smudge the colour over the rest of the plank. I added some double sided foam tape to the back of the plank and added it to the upper left corner of the card. I think the rustic look of the plank die tied in really well with the Building Buddies digi.
Don’t forget to stop by our A Perfect Time To Craft Challenge and check out the rest of the design team inspiration and, while you’re there, why not add an entry or two? Not only can you add as many entries as you’d like, you may just win one of the Dr Digi images used by the team. Thanks so much for spending time with me today, I look forward to next time! 😊
Constantly Carding 