Easter Lamb – SSS Hopping Along Card Kit

I am fond of sheep, particularly lambs, and many people that know me will tell you that they are my favourite animal. And springtime is the perfect time for making sheep themed cards! I wanted to experiment with stamping it onto kraft and colouring with my pencils, and I’m glad I did because it worked really well!

I started by lining up the sheep stamp from Clearly Besotted’s Feeling Sheepish, as well as the hello speech bubble from the Simon Says Stamp Easter Greetings stamp set that came in the Hopping Along card kit. I used my MISTI and stamped them onto kraft. Initially I used embossing ink for a watermark look, but the detail in the hello ended up lost, so I restamped them with MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink.

Next I coloured in the sheep. I used pink for the insides of the ears as well as a little blush onto the cheeks. For the sheep’s feet I used a combination of black and grey. The skin of the sheep is coloured lightly with my white Caran d’Ache pencil. I used the same white pencil to add colour and texture to the sheep’s wool. I did this by adding curls and swirls rather than flat coluring. Doing so allowed the base kraft colour to act as the shading, giving the impression of a white sheep without full white coverage.

I then created my sentiment strip using a snippet of brown paper, the MFT ink, and a sentiment from the Easter Greetings set. I double stamped it in my MISTI for a perfect impression, then trimmed the strip down with my paper trimmer. I had also already picked out some of the yellow and white striped pattern from the Doodlebug Easter Expressions Mini Icons Sticker Sheets, which came in the card kit, to add a bit of interest to the bottom of my card.

Laying out all the elements onto my green card base I felt like it still needed something extra. I wanted to add some interest to the card base itself. I considered a couple of different possibilities before settling on using the Mod Flowers Background Stamp, from the kit, with embossing ink to give a tone on tone effect. I was much happier with the look of the card after adding the flower pattern. I then went ahead and adhered the sticker stripes along the bottom, used Tombow Multi Mono Liquid Glue to attach the sentiment strip to my focal panel, and finally applied foam tape behind the focal panel to adhere it to the card base.

As I said, I’m very pleased with the colouring on the sheep. I like that I managed to give the impression of a white sheep without having to fully colour, and the kraft with the white really enhances the textured appearance. The overall colours of the card may not necessarily be those traditionally associated with spring or Easter I do think it has the feel of the season. And who can resist that sheep?!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

AAA Cards – Shiny Spring

Addicted to Stamps and More – Anything Goes

Inkspirational – Spring

Uniko Studio – Spring and Optional: Easter

Your Next Stamp Sketch and Colour Challenge – Sketch/Layout and/or Colour Palette (I used both the sketch and the colours)