Dare 2B Artzy September Challenge!

Whoo-hoo! It’s September. It’s a long, holiday weekend marking the end of summer AND because it’s the start of a new month Dare 2B Artzy has a new challenge for you.  This month’s challenge theme is

BIRTHDAYS!!

I’ve said before that fall is my absolute favorite time of year – mostly because of the cooler weather and gorgeous fall colors – but I’m a fall birthday as are my mom and step-dad. My mom and I actually share a birthday which is pretty cool. Because of that fall is always a special time of year for me for many reasons.

My card today features the fish from the Restore the Soul stamp set that was released not too long ago. I also used the cattails die from Dare 2B Artzy which I love for adding some dimension to my cards.

We want you to join this challenge and share your amazing Dare 2B Artzy creations that feature a Birthday theme. There’s an amazing Dare 2B Artzy prize up for grabs so you want to be sure to get your submissions in before the end of September!

Here’s my inspiration for the challenge:

To create this card, I knew that the fish was going to be my focal point. From the handful of times that I’ve actually been fishing (because I’m not an early riser and I’m not very good at it), I’d remembered that fish have a shimmer when the light hits them – even in water. I wanted to recreate that shimmer. In order to do that I need that I needed to convert my fish image into an image that could be foiled with the MINC. I stamped my image onto a piece of white cardstock. Next, I scanned the image on my HP all in one machine and sent it to my computer. I pulled the image into Adobe Photoshop Elements and cleaned up any spots or color variations that the scanner might have picked up. Once I was satisfied with my cleaned up image, I reprinted it to a laser printer. I believe there may be other methods now of foiling stamps, etc. but since I only have a MINC this is how I make it work for me.

Once I had my image printed to cardstock from my laser printer, I cut it down to a smaller size piece of paper and I was finally able to use the MINC to foil my image. I used a sheet of silver foil and ran it through my MINC machine twice inside of a piece of cardstock folded in half. I don’t use the clear folders that came with my MINC for foiling because I find that they get scratched easily and that those scratches transfer onto the image I’m foiling. Folded cardstock works great! I let the image cool a bit before peeling off the remaining foil. I don’t think I will ever get tired of the reveal after foiling something.  Crafting technology is pretty darn cool!

  Next, I colored my fish using a combination of orange and teal-green with my Copics. The nice thing about foiling is that it also helps with color bleed so you don’t have to be as careful with your coloring. Once I’d finished coloring my fish, I fussy cut it out and set it aside.

I cut a second piece of white cardstock about 5 x 7 in size. I figured out where I wanted my horizon line and I placed an 8 x 6 post-it note across the bottom of my cardstock – approx. 2 ¼ inches from the bottom. This masked the bottom portion of the card while I worked on my sky. I sponged on several colors on ink in yellow, orange, cantaloupe, lavender, blue and a bit of dark blue. I blended the colors together from the yellow starting at the horizon line and up into the blue sky to create the look of a sunset. I added a bit of darker purple to create the sort of darker color clouds you get when the sun is setting. I really like how blending colors together you always get a different effect depending on how you apply the sponge to paper.

Once I was happy with my sunset, I removed my mask at the bottom and then placed the mask over my sunset so I wouldn’t be mixing colors.

To create my lake, I wanted to make it a mossy teal green so I blended some teal and olive greens together with a bit of yellow near the top to create the appearance that the sun was shining across it. Once I removed the mask I was able to use a rectangle die to cut down the sponged panel to a better size to fit on a card.

When I was finished with all my ink sponging, I actually brushed on some Perfect Pearls powder in Perfect Gold over my sunset and Forever Green over my lake. I love the subtle shimmer it gives.

Next I die cut some stitched hillsides in some Kraft cardstock and then stamped the top layer with the Happy Birthday sentiment from the Ahoy Fox stamp set and heat embossed it with some Lindy’s Stamp Gang embossing powder in Tannenbaum Green Gold. I layered the stitched hillsides with some dimensional foam in between them and then glued them in place in front of my lake.

I die cut the Dare 2B Artzy cattails from some dark green cardstock and glued them in place on my stitched hillsides. With my cattails in place, I was able to figure out where to place my fish and ended up making it appear that he was jumping up out of the water. I’m not sure that normal lake fish even do that, but for the purpose of this card they do, LOL!

I cut down some dark brown cardstock and layered it behind my panel and glued the whole panel to a Kraft cardstock base.

For a finishing touch, I added 3 yellowish-clear dimensional dots called Skittles with some glossy accents glue and let them dry for a few minutes to make sure they were secure. They pick up the light a bit so I thought they could pass as fireflies. We don’t have fireflies here in Colorado, but I remember the first time I saw them when I was visiting North Carolina – it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I’m sure that’s what would make a fish jump out of the lake – to catch fireflies.

I love that my finished card ended up having these gorgeous colors but yet it can definitely pass as a masculine card. In fact, I think I’m going to give this to my step-dad later this month for his birthday.

We can’t wait to see what you create!!

Be sure to check out all D2BA’s products here!

Hope everyone will join the Birthday challenge this month. The team is looking forward to seeing your Birthday inspired projects featuring Dare 2B Artzy stamps & dies! Happy Stamping!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs!

Tonya