OK I admit it I may be slightly addicted to colouring my stamped images. I’m not an expert by any means but I do find it relaxing. Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers also make it ridiculously easy to get a nice even colour without those horrid lines other markers often leave. One of my favourite styles of focal point is a ‘scene’ and I’ve created a few using the characters from the By My Side Stamp Set. It’s such fun being able to put words into their mouths so to speak.
BY MY SIDE SIMPLICITY
In an earlier birthday card I mentioned that I thought the dog and boy weren’t really side by side. That wasn’t an issue today as I chose another of the sweet sentiments in the set.
I began with a 3″ x 3-3/4″ piece of Basic White Card and a Basic Gray ink pad. After stamping the boy and his dog over to the right I decided to make the boy my coordinating feature for this project. So I cut a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Basic White Card and stamped the boy coming in from the left side. Then I did the same thing on the front of a Basic White Medium Envelope. Finally I stamped “Thank you for being a part of my life” in the top left corner of the smaller Basic White piece.
TIP: Stampin’ Blends are designed to saturate card and paper with colour and so can bleed through to the back. For this reason I always slip some scrap paper inside my envelope before starting.
Now I was ready to colour in the images starting with a light Flirty Flamingo Stampin’ Blends for the boy’s cheeks. Over the top of that I coloured the faces with the Ivory Stampin’ Blends before continuing on to the arms and legs. I also used the Ivory to scribble some ground under the characters. For his T-shirt I used light Balmy Blue, followed by light Bermuda Bay for his shorts.
I’ve often found myself wishing that there was darker browns in the Stampin’ Blends range and it was only recently I realised that there were. They’re just not named in the same way as the other colours as they’re part of the Natural Tones group designed originally to provide a range of skin tones. So I chose the Medium Deep combo, using the darker 300 marker for the boy’s hair and the lighter 400 marker for the dog.
SIMPLE EMBELLISHMENT
With the colouring complete I was ready to create the rest of the parts for my thank you card.
I started by cutting a 3-1/8″ x 3-7/8″ piece of Bermuda Bay Card. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I mounted the small sentiment panel on top.
Next I used my Paper Trimmer to cut and score some Balmy Blue Card. After folding it along the scored line I sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder to create a card base. With that done I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to attach the assembled layers to the front.
Once the larger white layer was glued inside the card base I’d imagined I’d be finished but something seemed off. It was then that I decided to add a few simple embellishments to the front of the card. So from the four colours in the Classic Matte Dots pack I opted for Basic Gray. Using the adhesive already on the back of the dots I placed a line of 3 just below the layered panel. Finally my card felt complete.
With the exception of the boys’ cheeks all my colouring was done without any actual blending. So if you’re hesitant about Stampin’ Blends because of the blending aspect, don’t be. Just choose a couple of your favourite colours and start playing.
For more projects using the By My Side Stamp Set see these earlier blog posts:
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