Penny Black Well-Wishers for your birthday!

Hi blogging friends

Well, the nasty winds have finally abated after causing plenty of damage around our State but we got off lightly compared to Tasmania who received a battering.  We had some bitterly cold days where there was snow down to low levels.  No snow here but we had plenty of hail.  And we had quite a run of 0 degree mornings as well so I have quite a few plants that have been burnt by the frost.  We had the slow-combustion fire going almost non-stop which made it very cosy inside and made our cat Ruby very happy.  I am just amazed at how much a cat can sleep when you have the fire going:  cat's REALLY know how to relax, that's for sure!

Today I am sharing the birthday card I made for my daughter's 11th birthday at the beginning of July.  I used a Penny Black stamp called "Well Wishers" and stamped it onto watercolour paper using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink and coloured it with various mediums:  Lyra, Inktense and Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils, Tombow pens and Winsor and Newton watercolour paints.

The stamp just had the mouse holding one balloon but I thought it would be fun if the mouse held a bunch of balloons and decided to paper-piece each one.  I repeatedly stamped just the balloon onto various designer papers from the Echo Park Hello Summer pad and fussy cut each one then popped them up on dimensionals.  I popped some of the balloons up higher than others.  I drew in the balloon strings using a Copic multiliner black pen.  I did run around the left-hand edge of the balloons with a pale grey Tombow pen just to make the balloons look a little more rounded.  I also paper-pieced the present that the hedgehog is carrying.  Here is a close-up:-

For my sentiment, I thought it would be fun to add a speech bubble which I hand-cut then ran around the edges using Sky Blue pigment ink which hid any uneven cutting as well as making sure the speech bubble stand out a little from the background.  I used my Martha Stewart Stars edge punch to punch some tiny stars from the designer paper (they are the leftover punchies after using the punch) which I glued around the sentiment.

It's a bit hard to see in the photo but I added Kindyglitz Crystalina glitter glue to the stars on the sentiment panel, around the pink icing on the cake and the candle flame, the highlights on the balloons, the ribbon on the present and the cheeks on all the animals.

The card base was trimmed to 1/8" using my Perfect Layers Tools and the main image panel was diecut using my Big Shot and Lifestyle Nesting Rectangle dies.

Because the image panel was quite large, I kept the rest of the card simple and just added the bottom panel and tied on some twine.

When I started this card in the 2nd week of June, they had posted the Splitcoaststampers Technique Lover's Challenge TLC485 of Paper-Piecing Revisited - so that was why I decided to do paper-piecing on my image.  I always forget to do paper-piecing but I just love how it looks.  Unfortunately, I couldn't share my card on my blog until after my daughter's birthday (some weeks after the challenge was first posted) because it would spoil the surprise - but with other things going on in my life, I am only finally getting around to blogging it.  I am still popping it into the SCS Challenge as there is no time limit and I did specifically make it for the challenge.  Obviously, I won't be entering any other non-SCS challenges as that defeats the purpose of entering a challenge!  Click THIS LINK for more details on the TLC485 Challenge.

Thanks for visiting my blog today.

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Penny Black 'Well-Wishers' 2884K wood mount, Sentiment from Penny Black clear set 'It's Your Day' 30-046

Ink:  Ranger Archival Jet Black, Versacolor Sky Blue pigment

Designer paper:  Echo Park Hello Summer 6" x 6" pad

Accessories:  Big Shot, Lifestyle Nesting Rectangle dies, 1mm/2mm/3mm dimensionals, Kindyglitz Crystalina glitter glue, The Twinery 'Shore' twine, Fray Stop, Lyra + Derwent Inktense + Albrecht Durer watercolour pencils, Tombow pens, Winsor and Newton watercolour paints, #2 Kolinsky Sable paintbrush, Copic Multiliner waterproof 0.05 black pen, 140lb watercolour paper, Perfect Layers Tools, cardstock - light blue

Punches:  Martha Stewart Lace Doily + Stars edge