Things changed as it developed

This card is one that changed as I worked on it.  I had a plan, but something else took over and the plan vanished.  I had intended to use this birthday card, which I was making for someone special to also fulfil the brief for my DT piece for Craft A Scene.

As I go through this, you will see that the scene bit gradually faded into the background.  The recipient lives just outside Cardiff so I particularly wanted to use these Welsh themed stamps.

Ingredients

Theuva card (Clarity Stamps)

Clarity stamps - The Six Cities of Wales and the dragon remountable

Low tack masking tape

Speedball brayer

Adirondack - Cloudy Blue, Juniper, Lettuce

Big and Juicy inkpad (find whatever dye based pad you want as these appear to be out of production now - you will need a darkish blue changing to a purple-ish colour)

Attach your card to a piece of copy paper with the low tack masking tape.  You may also need to de-tack the tape by pressing it on your clothes first.  You will see why later on.  Stamp the large Six Cities stamp first, using the Adirondack Pitch Black.  Then add the Dragon in the centre.  The beauty of transparent stamps is that you can see exactly where you are placing things.  Give them a moment or two to dry and then add your sun/moon mask.

Using the brayer, add the Cloudy Blue to the sky area, coming in from the corner, making sure that you always keep the leading edge of the brayer clear of ink to avoid the possible stripes.

The load the brayer with the purple-ish colour, according to what you have and repeat the process for the sky, leaving just a little of the Cloudy Blue towards the bottom of the sky. 

Turn your work completely round, load your brayer with Juniper and start to work upwards from the bottom corner, still keeping that leading edge clear of ink.  Cloudy Blue and Juniper are not strong colours but they do provide a really good base for other colours.

With a piece of copy paper, torn into a rough hill shape, load your brayer with Lettuce, and start to put in your hills, moving your hill shape up the card as you finish each hill.  Remember that the hills closer to you will be the darkest.

This is where the scene idea slipped a little, so that the hills did not show well enough to fit that brief.  However, as a birthday card for the intended recipient, I was happy with it.

At this stage, it is time to start removing the masking tape.  Serious care is needed at this point, if you are not to totally destroy your creation.  Always pull the tape downwards and away from your work.  that way, if it sticks as this one did, you are not pulling your artwork to pieces.  I obviously did not de-tack the tape enough first.  Even low tack tape can stick too firmly at times as you can see.

Once you have removed the tape, have a good look at the result and then you can decide where you need to trim your picture to.

It is up to you how you want to mount the final result.  If you can pick out one of the stronger colours as your final card, that will look the best, in my opinion.

I like to try to match up the inserts to the front of the card.  In this case, I printed the sentiment inside from the computer, matching the colour of the writing to the card.  Then I stamped the watchbird stamp, which is a special family stamp and not commercially available.

To finish off, I used the brayer to bring the purple colour up from the bottom of the card, fading it upwards.

Looking at the finished card, I realised I forgot to say that I also got a make up sponge and just added a little orangy yellow to the sun.

Hope you like this card and can follow my description of how I got to the end result.  You do not need a lot of things to create a card, and everything that I have used here could be done with different stamps and colours.  The technique remains the same.  You just use it to create something individual to you and what you have.

If you like it or want to ask a question, please just leave me a comment and I will answer you.  Have fun.