Awesome Dinosaur

I have a second card to share with you today, and this one has quite a different tone to it than the first one. I got this stamp set a few weeks ago and hadn’t got around to using it. I finally had a go yesterday making a card that I will be sharing with you early next week. And then today I decided to make another card with it, which is this one!

The first element of this card I picked out was the cloud panel. It was a snippet leftover from the other dinosaur card I just mentioned, and seemed perfect to go with the layout I’d chosen for this card. I also took another snippet leftover from the other card, which is the green hill piece. I then decided I would use a card base I’d made from kraft card as it would let the colourful elements really shine.

I took the Triceratops (I think..?) stamp from Pink & Main’s adorable Dinomite stamp set and stamped it onto a snippet of watercolour paper using MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink. I then added colour to the body of the dinosaur using a purple watercolour pencil and blended it out with my water brush. I decided that my light source would be over to the right of the dinosaur and tried to do my colouring appropriately. After I’d blended out the first layer of colour I set it aside to dry.

Next I worked on my sentiment. I fiddled around for a little white to work out exactly where it should be positioned. I then stamped “You’re awesome” and heat embossed it in white. Initially I had planned for that to be the full sentiment, but after a bit more thought I decided to add the Rawr! Conveniently enough it fit perfectly in the space above the part I’d already embossed. For the rawr I used gold embossing powder.

At this point I returned to my dinosaur. It was dry enough for me to add colour to some of the other areas. I used a very pale yellow-brown to add a little shading to it’s horns, and a little red for it’s tongue. I blended them out and again set the whole thing aside to dry.

It took me quite a while to work out what to do for the “strip” on the right hand side of the card. I considered adding some patterned paper with tree trunks (as used here) but didn’t like that it would continue below the ground. In the end I decided to use the three stars from the stamp set and heat emboss them in a random cascade of gold.

Returning to my dinosaur again I added another layer of the purple to help deepen the shadows, and blended it out. Whilst it dried I adhered my paper elements to the card base using my tape runner. I then added a different shade of purple to the frills(?) on the dinosaur’s collar(?) (can you tell I don’t know much about dinosaur anatomy?) and filled in the mouth with black. I then finished off the drying process with my heat gun because I was impatient! With it all dry I carefully fussy cut it and added it to my card with some liquid glue.

As a final touch I decided to add a little something to the inside of the card. I love cards that are finished on the inside (and, even better, matching envelopes too!) but I rarely have the patience to actually do it myself… But today I did. I kept it simple and just heat embossed the “Happy Birthday” sentiment from the stamp set in white, then added the three stars around it and heat embossed them in gold.

I’m really pleased with how this card turned out. It’s really cute, the components all came together well, and I just really like it!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Mod Squad – Anything But Christmas

Mojo Monday – Sketch

Pink & Main – Anything Goes

PS, If you’re looking for my photo-a-day series, it has now been moved over to The Joyful Soul. I do hope you’ll follow me there if you don’t already!