Special Guest - Heidi Jakobs

Hi everyone, Heidi here again with my second Whimsy Stamps guest design project of the season. How I loved to colour the images on today’s cards! And isn’t it awesome that many of Whimsy Stamps gorgeous stamps are also available as digital stamps? I totally love that: one of the best things about digital images is that you can resize them to make them fit the project you have in mind!

On today’s project I used two of Whimsy Stamps digital images in combination with some other Whimsy Stamps clear/rubber stamps! Let’s get started!

Card 1 Step 1:

For my first card I started out by printing the Whimsy Stamps digital image called “Candle Light” onto alcohol marker friendly paper.

I wanted to create a look as if the snowman was sitting by the candle light at night, so the background needed to be darker. Since I don’t have that many colours of alcohol markers, I mixed some of the colours that I had to create a vintage dark background. I didn’t worry about blending it outwards super well since I planned on fussy cutting the image leaving a small dark border. For colouring I used the Spectrum Noir Illustrator alcohol markers in the following colours: CR5, CT2, EB8, TN4 and BG2, which are mostly gray browns and warm browns, combined with yellow and orange for the candle.

Step 2:

Next I worked on the other colours of my project: for this I used Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers in: TN2, TN8, DG1, DG4, DR2, DR5, PP3, TN6, TN4, CT2, CR5, Bl (blender) and BG2, which is the gray brown colour that I used in the first colouring part.  I also used this colour to mute the vibrancy of the other colours since I’m colouring a night scene.

Step 3:

When the colouring is done, I added back in some highlights using a white Gelly Roll pen, and then I fussy cut the image leaving a small dark border.

To further work on my background, I die cut a matching cool dark brown rectangle panel two sizes smaller then my card base. On this panel I stamped one of the sentiments from the Whimsy Stamps “You’re My Jolly” stamp set using VersaMark ink (this is a sticky ink) and then I heat embossed using a gold coloured embossing powder. The results for this will be best if you treat the paper first with an anti-static powder tool; this way the embossing powder will only stick to the VersaMark ink and not on the areas where your fingers have been, for example.

Step 4:

Now I’m ready to put my card together: I die cut a slightly larger panel from some matching red card stock and adhered both rectangle panels together using liquid glue. This combination I adhered to a white card base using one millimetre thick foam tape.  To finish the card, I only had to adhere the coloured image on top, also using one millimetre thick foam tape, and draw in the swirly parts and the snow using white and gold gel pens.

Card 2 Step 1:

For my second card project, I also started out by printing a Whimsy Stamps digital image (this time I used “Heidi with Sledge”) onto alcohol marker friendly paper. Of course it’s most convenient to print several images on an A4-sized paper all at once.

Then I started colouring the image, also using my Spectrum Noir Illustrator alcohol markers: for this first layer I used: CR1, CR2, TN2, PP3, DR2, DR5 and DR7 (for skin and red tones). I find it easiest to pretend that my light source is on the top left hand corner, so that I always know where my highlights and shadows will go (this will only work if there is no directly visible light source like in my last card).

Step 2:

Next I added my greens using DG4, CG3, DG1 and some EB8 (which is a dark brown) to create my shadows.

Step 3:

Here I forgot to take a picture when my colouring was done, so I inserted a detail picture of the finished card where you can see the colouring well: you know how that happens when you’re so into creating your project that you’re already working on the next step before you know it?

For the hair I used Illustrator markers in : EB8, TN4 and TN6.

And the other colours that I used to finish up the colouring are BG2, BT1 and the Blender.

When the colouring was done, I added back in some highlights using a white Gelly Roll pen, and then I fussy cut the image leaving a small border.

Step 4:

For my background I decided on a white rectangle panel two sizes smaller then my card base. Onto this panel I stamped only a part of the Whimsy Stamps “Falling Leaves Background” stamp using VersaMark ink and then I heat embossed using silver embossing powder.

On the top left hand part I then stamped one of the sentiments from a Whimsy Stamps stamp set called “The Nutcracker” using Versafine ink in “Onyx Black” and my MISTI stamping tool.

 Step 5:

Now I can put my card together: I die cut a slightly larger panel from some matching green card stock and adhered both rectangle panels together using liquid glue. To create a bit more distance between my coloured image and the stamped leaves background, I then first wrapped a sparkly red ribbon around these combined panels (and adhered on the back using regular tape) and then adhered this combination to my white card base using one millimetre thick foam tape.

To finish my project, I now only have to adhere the coloured image on top, also using one millimetre thick foam tape!

And that’s it for my guest design projects for this season!  I loved being on the Whimsy Stamps blog and working with Whimsy Stamps adorable and awesome products! Thanks for having me!