An apple a day...

Happy Monday everyone! It doesn't actually feel all that cheery here in Houston today- it's a gray, dark, rainy kind of day which makes it even more painful to get up and going to work. There's just not enough coffee to make this better today-ugh!

Since I had a rainy day like this for my birthday yesterday, a friend suggested I celebrate all week- that way I'm fairly likely to get at least one sunny day out of the bunch! Speaking of sunnier days... I saw this stamp in amongst my Unity Kit of the Month that I treat myself to (like I "need" anymore stamps-LOL!) and I had a general idea of what the card would look like.

The main image uses a technique called "masking" to layer images in front/behind one another. In this card, I stamped the apple on the right, then stamped another one on thin scrap paper (like computer paper or Post-It note paper) and cut it out. I covered the apple on the right with the scrap apple, then stamped the apple on the left. The portion that was stamped on the scrap doesn't appear and it makes your second image look layered behind the first one. This is a great technique for scenes- you can layer trees, flowers, etc behind a focal image and give the scene some real depth.

After I stamped both images, I spent some time playing with my alcohol markers- with no art training, learning to shade and shadow has been a trial for me! The image was cut out with a label die on my Sizzix machine with a black layer for contrast. I roughed up the edges of the patterned paper with a cutter tool (which works so much better than the edge of a scissor!) and stitched it to the background paper on my sewing machine. I find that real sewing is much faster than all the faux stitching techniques and worth a small amount of space in my craft room to keep the machine out.

The greeting was stamped and colored with the same markers, then punched out with a scallop punch. A few buttons and a multi-layer bow, and it's done! My kids are dying to borrow this stamp to make teacher cards and I am sure it will get lots of use for end of school gifts, etc.

Hope your Monday is sunny- thanks for stopping by!

Heidi

Supplies:
Paper: Basic Black, Whisper White, The Write Stuff and Christmas Cocoa DP
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Sizzix machine, alcohol markers, scallop circle punch, large circle punch, nested label dies, buttons, black gingham ribbon, sewing machine