Story-book window & tutorial

I have finally completed a card tutorial!  I had hoped to do one for a snowscape, but the seasons are changing and I have more of a spring scene  instead.  I used some of the same techniques to do this scene as I used for my snowscapes.  The inspiration for this card came from the cover of a children’s novel The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson

First I cut a piece of scrap card to be a mask for my hillside.  I kept both pieces so I could mask the sky and the hills at different times.  Of course you don’t need the huge piece I have, I’m not sure why I went so large?

I started with the sky, holding the mask in place while I sponged with both Bashful Blue and Ballet Blue.

To do the hills I swapped masks and sponged down the left hand side and across the bottom with Garden Green.

I then moved the mask a little to make the edge of a hillside and sponged with more Garden Green and some Certainly Celery.

On the right hand side of the hills I sponged with  Summer Sun which I blended into Certainly Celery to create a lighter hillside.

With all the background sponging done I began to stamp the  silhouettes along the bottom of the card.  I used Basic Black,  stamping some of the stamps upside down to use just the stems as grass.   Where the flower stems were a little short I lengthened them with a black marker.  I used two stamps from Garden Silhouettes to frame the picture in foliage.

Around the outside of the scene I embossed a silver border using an embossing marker and ruler to make a line down each edge.

I added a little flourish to each corner with versamark and the large flourish stamp from Baroque Motifs.

Rather than pouring embossing powder over the whole image I dipped the edges into silver e.p. one at at time and then did the corners.

I stamped the dragonfly in black and  coloured the wings with an embossing pen before embossing them in silver.

To make the sentiment I sponged a rectangle of Whisper White cardstock in Garden Green and Certainly Celery, then stamped the words in Basic Black and matted in black.( the photo didn’t turn out, sorry)    I attached silver cord to both ends, wrapped it around the back of the cardstock and taped it. I also added the tiny butterflies from the Branch Out set.

As I was mounting the card on black I needed a white panel inside, so I sponged a bit in both greens and made the silver edges and flourishes using the same method described above.

I hope my instructions make sense, the method is fairly straight forward so have fun if you try it.  Thanks for dropping in and reading this far!  Have a great weekend.

Supplies:

Stamps: Garden Silhouettes, Pocket Silhouettes, Infinite Goodness, Season of Friendship, Baroque Motifs, Branch Out
Inks: Bashful Blue, Ballet Blue, Garden Green, Certainly Celery, Summer Sun, Basic Black, Versamark
Cardstock: Whisper White, Basic Black
Also: Silver e.p., silver cord