Lovely Bunny

Today's card was inspired by sketch #59 from the Retro Rubber Blog & the April color scheme challenge @ the Rubber Dance blog. I will also be applying it @ Addicted to Stamps #236 "Anything Goes" challenge and the heARTfelt Stamping month long "Anything Goes" challenge.

Making this card was alot of fun because I dug out a stamp set that I haven't used in a very, very long time...so long, in fact, that I have to admit I totally forgot I even had it! I spent some time a few weeks ago going thru my stamp collection to refresh my memory on what I had and that's when I saw this beauty and pulled it out...not knowing what I would do with it, just knowing it needed some love! 

This bunny stamp set was long ago retired from The Angel Company (circa the early 2000's) and the patterned paper is just as old and came from a paper pack from Basic Gray called Skate Shoppe. I started with a vertical, top folding A2 sized white card base and followed the sketch to trim my layers. No dimensions are ever given in a sketch challenge...that's always up to the card designer to interpret and can sometimes take a little bit of trial and error to get the proportions right, but for this card I just did some light pencil tracing on the back of my papers and trimmed them down with my trusty Fiskars 12" paper trimmer.

.

I stamped the bunnies in Momento Tuxedo Black ink on scraps of ultrasmooth white cardstock and then stamped the larger bunny a second time on a scrap of typing weight paper and fussy cut it to make the mask I would need later to apply the distress inks to the background. I cut the word "lovely" from a scrap of the same brown as is layered on the front of the card. This die is from a great set that I got from Peachy Cheap in one of their "Deals of the Day"...I got 16 word dies in this set for only $9.99 + minimal shipping fees a few weeks ago and I have using them quite frequently. I have no idea what brand they are, but the quality is good and the die-cuts they make are top notch! It was a steal of a deal that I'm glad I managed to get my hands on -they sell out so quickly on those most popular items! 

I kept the coloring of the bunnies quite simple, since the stamped image already provided a good bit of the shading for me. 

I then masked off the larger bunny using that 2nd stamped image and my removable sticky dots dispenser came in handy for adhering the mask to the stamped and colored image, but still being easy to remove once I was done. Using the Ranger round distress ink blending foam tool, I gently applied Stormy Sky distress ink on the top of the card and Twisted Citron distress ink (sorry, that color ink pad isn't pictured because I decided on using it at the last minute, lol) on the bottom of the card. I then spritzed it with a tiny bit of water, using my mini-mister, to remove some of the ink and give the sky a bit of a cloudy effect. 

All the layers on this card were put together using my ATG gun...don't know how I crafted without it all those years -it is a seriously heavy duty adhesive and I love it! After adhering the "lovely" die cut using my Xyron "X" sticker maker, I helped the sentiment "pop" off the sky background just a bit and incorporated more of the white from the challenge color scheme by outlining the word with my Signo white gel pen. The twine I wrapped around the top of the card front several times and tied in a simple knot.

Along the bottom of the layers on the card front I added sequins in brown, white and light blue then stacked tiny iridescent sequins on top to help them stand out from the background a bit more...this is more obvious when seeing the card in person and is very pretty and shimmery. Liquid Glass is my go-to sequin adhesive these days and seems to hold up rather well. On the inside, I stamped the sentiment in black, added some cardstock layers from more scrap and accented the cute bunny with one set of the stacked white sequins in the corner.

This card is now all ready to be mailed out late next week to one of my April card swap partners.