Card Shark - coloured pencil

Mouses playing games with cards almost as big as they are! This cute House Mouse image, coloured with Prismacolor pencils, is the focal of a birthday card for my brother-in-law.

Putting It Together

My brother-in-law loves playing games. Some of the games he plays use standard playing cards. When I saw this stamp I thought of him, even though he isn't the cheating type. With its theme, though, I decided to use this for his birthday card. I just love those mouses.

I stamped the image on kraft MiTientes with a rusty ink. While I was at my friend's house for a "crafter-noon", I coloured it with Prismacolor pencils that I brought with me in my big zip-up case. "Ooo, what's that?" my friend asked when I plopped the case on the table and started unzipping it.

The BTSKY case holds 160 pencils (Prismacolor has 150 colours plus colourless blender). I really like it. I have my pencils arranged in colour groups and can flip back and forth easily like pages in a book. I was, though, disappointed the strap broke as I was gathering my things to go to my friend's house. I've only had it a few months. The rest seems to be in good repair, so I'll get fix the strap and go on. It isn't hugely expensive but it does take time to load it with the pencils. 

I did get a bit "in the zone" with my colouring on this image. At one point, while she was doing her own crafty thing, she exclaimed, "Oh that's what that soft thut-thut-thut noise is!" as I was doing tiny flicks for the fur. It was handy to have another eye while I was colouring some of the contrast areas. I don't know what possessed me to make the foreground mouse greyish knowing I would have another grey thing by him. But, there's more than one type of grey, too.

I decided to use a sketch challenge for the layout of the card with mini cards for the three lines.

While I had remembered to bring the mini playing cards to the crafternoon, I had forgotten to bring a patterned paper I was thinking to use. I did a dry fit using one of the papers from my friend's stash but it wasn't the 'right' background. She had a bit of houndstooth, too, that was almost perfect but was in a 12" by 2" strip, not quite wide enough even if chopped in half. I figured out, too, while I was at her place, 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" (A2) was too small for the finished card.

Keeping with the idea of houndstooth, when I was at home, I looked through my stash and each bit I had was either too small (embossing folder) or the wrong colour. So, I decided to take a black and white houndstooth from Michaels (bought a couple years ago and no longer available) and re-colour it. I used Distress Oxide to make it a warm brown and black. I also ran it through with a We R Memory Keepers 3D embossing folder for a subtle texture.

I did a dry fit adding a sentiment stamped on kraft with the rusty ink and fussy cut with a narrow margin. I stamped and cut this sentiment with the intent just to see if I liked the element and was intending to change the paper and possibly ink but still had the rusty ink on my table. However, I liked the look of it just as it was.

I created a cardbase to fit the background panel of black heavyweight cardstock to end up with a side opening card 5 1/2" by 5'. A purely square card just didn't feel right.

Inside, I added card symbols cut from scrap on a light burlap patterned paper. I always like to put a light coloured panel inside dark card bases. I added a sentiment stamped with the rusty ink.

Supplies

Challenges

House Mouse and Friends: Add a Number

Outlawz Wednesday Sketch: 4-11 Sept

Crafter's Cafe: 3 of something ( 3 'lines' of cards)

A Bit More Time to Craft: Anything Goes

Crafting From the Heart: Anything Goes