Howdy, Cowgirl

I’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with digi-stamps lately, and this card is another example of that. I made it as a response to both The Paper Players‘ Western challenge, and Cute Card Thursday‘s Transport challenge, with Simon Says Stamp Wednesday‘s Anything Goes challenge thrown in for good measure. EDIT – this card was chosen as A Cut Above at The Paper Players!

I actually composed the main image from two different digi-stamps. First I found this image of the covered wagon which is actually a colouring page rather than a digi-stamp, but worked perfectly for what I wanted. It really seems to say “Western transport” to me! I coloured the whole image in, including colouring some sky for the background.

Whilst I was happy with the completed image I decided it was a bit plain and needed something more, so I started to look for a cowboy (or girl) image to use with it. I came across this one which is again from Free Dearie Dolls Digi Stamps. I digitally coloured that too, then resized it to layer on top of the wagon image.

I’m really happy with the overall look of the image. They work really well together! Of course it helps that I used the same style of colouring for both, but I really think they look like they were originally intended to be together despite that not actually being the case.

I came across my sentiment by accident, oddly enough. Whilst I was searching for one of the other images I found it and thought it was interesting. After I’d completed the images I decided that the sentiment would work very well with it, and decided to go for it. Colouring it was a very quick and simple process.

At this point I did something unusual. I took a break! I usually work on my cards in one sitting. Today though I was expecting a delivery of craft goodies that I’d ordered at the weekend, including some paper that was recommended to me for printing my digi-stamps onto, so I stopped to wait until the post arrived. I’d also ordered another surprise pack of 6×6 papers. When I looked through the surprise pack to see what I’d got I was pretty excited to find the patterned paper you can see on the card. Perfectly Western, and fits wonderfully with the colours I’d chosen for my image. I didn’t have to change a thing!

As I didn’t have a particular layout planned for the card I had a look through some different options for inspiration. I didn’t choose to go for any one in particular in the end, instead making my own thing drawing inspiration from various sketches.

I cut a wide band of patterned paper and adhered that onto a panel of white card. I was planning on sticking the image straight down on that but that didn’t look quite right, so instead I mounted the image on another panel of white, edging it with black ink to help it stand out against the background. Having stuck down the image panel it was just a case of sticking on the sentiment, which I had carefully and painstakingly fussy cut. And that was that.

I’m very happy with how this card turned out. Honestly, it’s not the sort of card I would normally make. Western is not a theme I would have used of my own accord, but it worked out pretty well.

Love,

Lady Joyful

I was honoured to find out that this card has been chosen as a Cut Above at The Paper Players!