Framed Stag

Rosi is our host for September at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. To start us off, she's chosen a sketch for us to play with.

 

I have stuck to this one pretty much as it is, without any flips or tweaks! I even managed to keep some of the open space, which I love, but am very bad at leaving on a card.

The first step was to heat emboss the stag silhouette on the card. I tried two different scales, one with the full stamp, and one with the body masked off to just give the head. I seem to be doing cards in pairs at the moment, trying out two versions of the same thing. The larger is a mix of black and copper powder, to give a bronze effect, the smaller is just black.

I then added brushos, using an aperture stencil to contain them and the water within an oval area around the stag. This worked a bit better than I hoped - the areas are more defined than I had in mind, especially the larger one.

I also added brushos to scrap pieces to cut the strips from, using darker colours for contrast. I edged these with walnut stain distress oxide.

The frames are die cut, the two came as a set.

The sentiments are different to suit the different sizes. For the larger one I die cut the sentiment, then heat embossed in black. The smaller has a stamped sentiment on a scrap of card. I edged both in black permanent pen, then mounted on a 7x7 and a 6x6 card blank.

 

 

I do love the brushos, and these warm, natural colours are such a great backdrop to a stag image, suggesting a woodland scene.

 

Now it's your turn to show us your interpretation of the sketch. Share it with us at the 52CCT blog, where you can see all the wonderful inspiration cards from my design team colleagues.

The challenge is open for a week, until Friday 10th September. Have fun!