Hi you!
I have been swooning over a few cards I have seen recently where cardmakers created an ink blended sunset sky. I never tried that before so I decided: today was the day 🙂 !
I started out with 2 slimline card panels. One, I used for my sand and the other one, I used for my sky. I started by die cutting my sandy border. I placed that border on top of my second panel to see where my sun would go. To create the sun, I first die cut a mask with a little circle die. I placed that die cut in the middle of my card, but on the bottom half so the sandy border would overlap that sun. This creates the perfect sunset shape!
For the ink blending of the sandy border, I used Distress Oxides in Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Gathered Twigs. For my sky, I started with that mask still on my panel. I used Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Spiced Marmelade and Abandoned Coral for my sky. When I removed the mask, I gently ink blended the sun itself with Squeezed Lemonade. It created a soft glow on my sky. I splattered on some white gouache to add a bit of texture too.
When my background was ready, it was time to decide what animals I wanted to use in my scene. I used a bunch of different stamp sets: Monkey Friends, Jungle Friends, Koala Friends and Tropical Toucans. I stamped them in a black Copic friendly ink, since I was gonna be doing some Copic coloring.
These are the combinations I used for my coloring:
- Koala: W5 – W3 – W1 – W00
- Braches: E57 – E55 – E53
- Monkey: E37 – E33 – E31 / E11 – E00 – E000
- Tiger: E44 – E43 – E41 / E00 – E000 / N6
- Leaves: YG67 – YG17 – YG23 / G17 – G02 – G00
- Flowers: R85 – R81 – V000
I decided I needed a bit more interest on the top of my panel. It felt like my images were overwhelming mostly the middle and bottom of my panel, so I wanted to even that out a bit. For that, I die cut 2 leafy borders out of the Stitched Leafy Borders set and I ink blended them with some dye inks.
For my sentiment, I used the Woodland Critters stamp set. I white heat embossed it on my sand. I did place my images on my panel before doing that, just to make sure my sentiment was spaced out right.
Time to assemble everything! I started by glueing my sand on the bottom of my panel. Then I adhered most of my images with liquid glue. Only the little tiger was foam mounted.
Then I decided on my patterned paper to frame my whole panel. Put everything on a Neenah 110lb card base and my card was finished. I am really excited about how it turned out. I don’t use those orange shades very often, but this sky has my heart.
Hope I gave you some crafty inspiration. Have a great day!
PS: Don’t forget to make someone smile today 🙂
Love, Jarle x
Handmade card. Happy heart. 