Easter Chick

Easter falls early this year, so I decided to make a couple of cards. My nieces and nephew are all grown, but I have some friends with small children and thought it might be fun to make them an Easter card. Here’s the design I came up with:

For the background panel, I used the Stampin’ Up!® Work of Art stamp set and Bermuda Bay ink. I did four generations of stamping without reinking to create the ombre effect of the brush stripes. I love how this technique gives the look of using multiple inks when it’s really only one! To help keep the spacing of my stripes as even as possible, I used a stamp positioning tool for this step. I positioned the stamp for the first generation (darkest) position at the top of the card then simply moved my cardstock up by one inch for each subsequent stamping down the panel. Once I had all the stripes stamped, I added the Happy Easter sentiment from the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set at the bottom center of the card.

For my focal image, I stamped the little chick from the limited edition Sale-A-Bration stamp set called Honeycomb Happiness on white cardstock using Basic Black archival ink. Since the stripes on my background have a painterly feel, I did some simple watercoloring on the chick’s body using some Calypso Coral ink with a mostly dry aqua brush.  I added just a touch of Pumpkin Pie marker on the beak and feet. Again, this gives the illusion of using multiple colors when I only used one. When everything was dry, I cut out the chick image using a 2.5″ circle punch.

To give my focal point a bit of added interest, I cut out a 2.75″ scalloped circle from Calypso Coral cardstock using my Cricut Explore. I sponged around the edges of the scallops using the coordinating ink to give it a bit of definition then adhered the chick circle to it.

My card base is an A2 top-folding card made from Calypso Coral cardstock. I matted the background panel with a piece of Basic Black cardstock then adhered it to the card base then added the focal panel with some Stampin’ Dimensions. To finish off the card, I added a medium rhinestone on either side of the sentiment.

I’m enter this card in the following challenges:

• The Paper Players – the current theme is a color challenge (Calypso Coral, Bermuda Bay, and Basic Black).
• Can You Case It – the current theme is a color challenge (use any three colors plus neutrals).
• AAA Cards – the current theme is Easter.