Aloha, all!
It's been a busy week! I spent most of last week getting ready for my card-making class on Friday plus being involved in activities of two clubs to which I belong. Finally today I can take a breather – and yikes, October will be over before the week is! And then it's November and the holidays really begin in earnest.
The Stampin' Up! Only Blog Challenge focuses on just this realization that the holiday season is almost upon us. We usually wait until late October/early November before focusing on Thanksgiving projects. But many of our readers live in Canada, where Thanksgiving is celebrated much earlier than in the United States. And then there are those who are in Europe where Thanksgiving is not a holiday, or in the Southern Hemisphere, where Spring is in full swing, and the harvest we celebrate is a good half year away. So the challenge this time included just "Thanks" as well as Thanksgiving. My card could be a bit of both.
I loved this set from the first time I saw it in the Stampin' Up! 2016 Holiday Catalog. Also ever since I saw the two images that make up the basket of vegetables, I wondered if I'd be able to do the masking needed to fit the veggies into the basket. The veggie stamp is really made to fit another basket in the stamp set, and that would have been an easy group to stamp. This, however, was a bit more complicated. Usually, when you want one image to appear on paper in front of another image, you stamp the front image first, mask it with another copy of the image stamped on sticky note paper and then cut out. And finally, you stamp the image that's to appeard behind the first over the masked image. Simple!
But that wouldn't work well with this basket. If I did it that way, the whole basket would be either in front of or behind the veggies. But I wanted one of the basket handles to be in front and one behind the veggies. There are the steps I took:
- I inked up the basket with Early Espresso Ink. Then I wiped the ink off the part of the handle that would be on the left of the stamped image.
- I created a mask for the basket, and cut out the part of the handle that I didn't stamp in the first step.
- I stamped the veggies on top of the masked basket image. The part of the veggie image on the right appears stamped behind the right side of the basket handle.
- I created a mask for the veggies and placed both the veggies mask and the partial basket mask over the stamped images.
- Finally, I stamped the basket again over the masked images, just inking up the left side of the handle. This allowed parts of the basket handle on the left to show through where there were no veggie images.
Now that I've got the masks all ready to go, I may just have to stamp this image again!
As you might think by looking at the image, I used a LOT of Stampin' Write Markers to color in the veggies: Elegant Eggplant, Pumpkin Pie, Pear Pizzazz, Crushed Curry, Perfect Plum, Garden Green, and Always Artichoke. Then I used two more markers, Crumb Cake and Soft Suede to color in the basket. I think I got a cramp in my arm from pulling all those markers out of their storage spots and then putting them back! Who needs adult coloring books when you've got Stampin' Up! stamps like these!
I cut the image out with one of the Layering Ovals Framelits, matted it with a slightly larger scalloped oval made of Soft Suede, and then a much larger scallop oval in Pear Pizzazz.
For the sentiment, stamped in Soft Suede, I clipped the ends using the Banner Triple Punch, matted it with Soft Suede Cardstock, and then arranged a piece of 5/8" Burlap Ribbon and a small strip of Pear Pizzazz Cardstock to place undernearth the sentiment layers, which I adhered using small pieces of Stampin' Dimensionals. Oh, and this sentiment just cried out for hearts from the Regals Collection Enamel Dots (Always Artichoke color).
There are quite a few Textured Impressions Embossing Folders that would have worked with this layout. I chose the Brick Wall Embossing Folder, mostly because it was already out on my work table (no, I hadn't cleaned up from my class yet when I made this).
I hope you enjoyed my perhaps-not-very-clear instructions for doing the double masking. I certainly enjoyed doing it! And here are the featured products from Stampin' Up! that I used for today's card. Click on any of the images to learn more about them and buy them from my store, especially if today's project has inspired you to do that!
