Isn’t it funny how memory works. There I was creating my card this morning and all of a sudden a phrase popped into my head. “How now brown cow” was something I remember from my childhood. It was used in elocution lessons originally although I’m pretty sure I never had those. Maybe it came up in an English lesson and we had fun emphasizing the rounded vowel sound. As a result of my odd memory I coloured my cow with brown patches and the phrase is now stuck in my head.

TWO-COLOUR BACKGROUND

I began my project by stamping the standing cow from the Over The Moon Stamp Set onto a layer of Very Vanilla Card using Tuxedo Black ink. Then I stamped it onto a Full-Adhesive Post-It® Note and cut it out with Paper Snips to create a mask.

Next I placed the mask over the first cow so I could create the background using pieces of Stampin’ Sponge. For the grass I used Granny Apple Green ink and for the sky I chose Seaside Spray. To get the textured effect I used a combination of a circular motion and tapping with the sponge. Finally I stamped the small grass image using Granny Apple Green ink.

The “You’re udderly fantastic!” sentiment also comes from the Over The Moon Stamp Set and I stamped it directly onto my background with Tuxedo Black ink.

Then once that was done I removed the mask to reveal the cow ready for colouring.

BROWN COW

Colouring the cow wasn’t difficult using Stampin’ Blends but without the blending. For the fringe and the patches I used light Crumb Cake, while the hooves were coloured using dark Crumb Cake. Then I added light Petal Pink for the inside of the ears, the nostrils and the udders.

My little brown cow was so sweet I decided to stamp her on the front of a Whisper White Medium Envelope, coming in from the right. Then I did the same on a layer of Whisper White Card and coloured them both with the Stampin’ Blends.

In no time at all I was ready to put it all together.

SIMPLE LAYERS

Using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I mounted the main piece onto a layer of Whisper White Card. Next I wrapped three pieces of Whisper White Baker’s Twine around the layers, securing them on the back with Tear & Tape Adhesive. Then with a fourth piece of twine I tied a small bow around the wrapped twine.

With that done I fixed the assembled layers to a Seaside Spray Card base using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

All that left was the stamped Whisper White layer, and I fixed that inside the card base with liquid glue.

I love how this card turned out, the contrast between the background and the cow is quite striking don’t you think?

You can see some other projects created using the Over The Moon Stamp Set in my earlier blog posts:

• First take one cow
• Cow’s it going? Could be better

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