Snow Day…
Then came the fun stuff - blending a background!
In order to blend a background I needed to make a mask for the images that I had already colored. Normally I wouldn’t have colored the images before blending a background just in case something didn’t go as planned, however in this case I had already colored the image.
To create a mask - I simply print the same image on a piece of copy paper and fussy cut on the lines of the image with a nice pair of fussy cutting scissors. I use some repositionable dot runner to attach the masks in place over the images.
Before blending a sky I used Catherine Pooler - Lemongrass ink and blended a nice glow around the campfire area.
The first layer of blending uses Catherine Poolers’ On the Lake ink. This is one of my favorite shades! It’s perfect when creating day or night sky.
Before removing the masks from the images. I created a snow like splatter using acrylic white paint and a few drops of water and used it to splatter snowfall across my blended background.
I repeated the splatter with a tiny smidgeon of Cosmic Shimmer mixed with a small amount of water and splattered it with a fan paint brush.
I let this layer dry for a few minutes and took the opportunity to reset my crafting playlist - Chris Stapleton doesn’t know it - but he sparks the creativity in my studio on a daily basis.
Does anyone else craft to music?
Once the layer was dry I stamped the sentiment “Happy Snow Day” from Just Sentiments - Snow from Papertrey Ink.
Buttons Galore & More - Avalanche embellishments are the perfect touch to this card just to create a little added interest… in case there isn’t enough already! The snowflakes, rhinestones and so much more are included in the pack.
Finally… remove the masks!
This is my favorite part! The unveiling of the complete card front!
I’m sure tomorrow’s snow storm will bring about a few more snowmen center stage on a card front or two, so be sure to check back for those.
So… follow up from last week in regards to the green Christmas and New Year that we had here in Eastern Ontario - I did say I was quite sure that I expected that sometime in January we would make up for all of that snow that hadn’t landed yet.
Surprise!! This week has been nothing but snow, after snow, after more snow. We had one pretty good storm on Tuesday into Wednesday, with another forecasted for late tomorrow (Friday) and into Saturday with even larger snowfall amounts that we received earlier this week.
The local children have been able to blow the dust off of their toboggans and sleds and joyfully build snowmen during the 2 Snow Days they have had this week.
And then there was my husband - the only joy that came for him in this white fluffy mess was in the form of a shovel and a plow.
And me… I decided it was time to create some snowman fun in the studio with this beautiful snowy card front. The sketch was from a digital stamp illustrated by Patricia Alvarez - Snowman & Marshmallow Digital Stamp.
I sized the PNG image to the desired size for my card front using Adobe Express (easy program to use and free), printed it and used my Copic markers to color it.
The next layer of blending is Catherine Pooler - Dress Blues ink, followed by Catherine Pooler - Queen for a Day ink. Catherine Pooler inks are my go to inks for blending at the moment. I haven’t found anything else that I like as much as this line of inks. If you know of something maybe you’ll drop me a note since I’m always looking for new products to try!
Back to the card: After blending these 3 inks initially, I then go back in with a light blending of Dress Blues, and then On the Lake inks working backwards basically. Just be careful not to work over the Lemongrass glow with to much of the darker shades.
The glow should appear to hovering around the campfire and to the front of the snowman. Blending would be darkest behind the snowman and towards the edges of the card front panel.