Country Girl Birthday

 Hello again and hope you are well. I had 2 good health days and 1 horrible one since I last posted. But the horrible one was caused in large part by sleeping on my neck wrong, so I've corrected that by wearing my neck brace while sleeping. Aside from the occasional coughing/choking fit, lol, it's working {knock wood}. No change on my ankle.

My card share today is for a close friend's birthday. She's at heart a country farm girl and loves classic red pick-up trucks, and shabby chic and vintage decor. Last year when I saw Spellbinder's Truckin' Thru the Seasons die release, I bought it with her in mind and was gonna make her a Christmas card with it, but my neck and ankle had other plans for me. 

   

While looking through Split Coast Stamper sketches, I saw this one and my first thought was, what in the heck would someone do with that? Then a scene with her truck just magically appeared in my head! LOL True story. I resized the sketch to half-sheet (8.5 x 5.5) size in PSE and I also did some hybrid-type work with digi stamps before printing out to use on my card. I took process shots so you could see my steps. Here goes:

    

The photo at left shows the sketch printout along with the printout after adding the 2 digi stamps Old Mailbox and Nell's Cottage from Beccy's Place that were perfect for my "vision". This step is to adjust image sizes. I also added an actual-size photo of the truck die cut. Beccy's optional challenge twist for January is to add some doodling or zentangling, so I'm offering my freehand drawing of the foreground hill (the curvy sketch element) and also the far horizon and road between the two. (I don't zentangle because it cramps up my hand.) In the righthand photo, I removed the truck to just print out what I want for the card front and then print that again on Avery removeable label paper for masking.

  

These 3 photos shows my coloring/stenciling progress, left to right. In Photo 1 I've done the drawing with my Carbon Desk Pen and then colored the grass with Promarker. Photo 2 shows the mailbox, road and house colored and the sky stenciled. Photo 3 shows the road stenciled and the Avery Elle stamp Happy Birthday added and heat-embossed. 

I used an MFT stencil and Distress Inks for the sky and a The Greetery stencil and Distress Inks for the road. The Route 65 is a digital element I created from a Route 66 sign. The card base is Bazzill Kraft card stock and all the designer paper is very old 12x12 Jenni Bowlen scrapbooking papers. The front paper that's peeking out was ink and edge distressed.

All die cuts were cut from white card stock which I then colored with Promarkers, except for the silver parts which were colored with Silver Fox Smooch Ink The balloon strings were drawn with a Sakura Silver Gelly Roll. The balloons were cut from a Divinity Designs die.

On the inside, more of the Jenni Bowlen paper and hand-stamping on the left hand side using Sugarloaf See D's, Autumn Leaves Ronna Farrer and Hero Arts stamps on a Spellbinders label die cut mat. The right hand side features Beccy's Place printed digital sentiments from Old Mailbox.

The back of my card has more Jenni Bowlen papers and another Spellbinder label die cut where I stamped the Autumn Leaves heart more prominently this time and my Lawn Fawn siggie stamp.

Some close-up shots.

And a final view. Thanks for coming by to have a look. I hope we all have a great day! XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:

1.   Split Coast Stampers sketch SC534

2.   Beccy's Place January Challenge: AG + Opt. Doodling -- Option played! I drew the horizon, road and balloon strings freehand to tie the scene together.

3.   AAA Birthday Game #21: Stenciled Background -- I stenciled the sky and the road.  

4.   Happy Little Stampers January AG with Dies -- Used Spellbinders truck die and Divinity Designs balloon die  

5.   A Place to Start Jan. 2021 Challenge 1: AG  #3/8

6.   613 Avenue Create Challenge 1 Jan. 2021: AG   #4/8

7.   Try it on Tuesday: Uplifting or Positive Quotes -- On the front and inside

8.   More Mixed Media January Challenge: AG + Opt. Blue -- Blue sky

9.   I Love Promarkers #426: AG -- used Promarkers throughout entire scene  #2/3

10. NBUS #22 - first time to use the dies