cg says [something loudly]: Russian Nesting Dolls

Friday, October 22, 2010

Russian Nesting Dogs

While making a card with my new favorite stamp, I learned that the manufacturer, Hero Arts, has its own crafting blog. So I decided to enter their current challenge, only partly as an excuse to use my Russian Doll stamps. Their challenges are month-long, and two-tiered for those of us who arrive late to the party. October's challenge Holiday Cardmaking and Photo Cards, and I was inspired by their tutorials.

For an extra challenge, I used the Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combo Generator. I picked this combo because it was kinda Christmasy.

I also decided to make yet another magic picture card, because it's fun and and everybody loves magic. I hope it will inspire others to do the same! I'm offering a free SCAL2 cutting file for the card pieces at the bottom of this post. For the photo, I subjected my sweet dogs to a shoot with a nesting doll. The "mask" effect on Allen (the white one) was a pleasant surprise!

The entire family is pleased with the result!

Stamp: Hero Arts LP158 / Russian Dolls
Magic Picture card:
Original inspiration: Extreme Cards & Papercrafting
Tutorial: SplitcoastStampers
Free template for SCAL2 (copyright cg-says 2010)

Babushka'd

So my dog Walt got me up at 2am by sitting up on his back legs and grabbing at my face with his hand-paws, and once I had watched him run around the yard and drink an entire bowl of water he was exhausted and I was wide awake. So I decided to try my hand at the latest Color Throwdown Challenge: dusty durango [dark red], perfect plum [dusty lavender] and so saffron [dark yellow]. I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to play with my new Babushka / Russian Nesting Dolls stamp set, a birthday gift from my Baby.

One of my favorite ways to use these stamps to to hand-color them with Marvy stamp markers. It's relatively easy and I love the result. I used this method for the pop-out dolls on the top; after stamping them, I colored over it with yellow, which gave it a deeper effect. I stamped the border with dark red marker, and detailed with it plum and yellow. For the background paper I used StazOn ink and added more detail. Because these are wooden stamps, it was no easy feat getting things to line up. Finally, I colored the background paper with plum-colored chalk.