I decided the Gnome Home from Odd Bird Planet needed a little sprucing up for the Holidays. I was in a bit of a goofy mood and my decorating went a little over the top, but I thought I’d share it anyway.
Here is my finished product. I used a bunch of different Odd Bird Planet stamps in my little creation. In case inquiring minds want to know – here’s what I did.
First I stamped the Gnome Home in Tuxedo Memento ink. Then I masked it with eclipse paper. I inked around the image with Broken China Distress ink using a duster brush. I did the top “sky” area darker than the bottom “snow” area. (the green on the mask is from the last time I used it – I save them and reuse them so I don’t have to cut stuff out again… can you say “l-a-z-y”…)
I colored my Gnome Home with Copic markers. The mushroom cap is pretty big. To avoid marker streaks, you need a well inked marker. The trick is to color slowly enough to saturate the paper, but quickly enough to keep a wet edge on the ink. Sometimes you need to move around a bit when you color to keep all the edges wet. In large areas, I use the wedge tip of the marker because it delivers more ink.
Then I stamped all my “pieces”, cut out around them and colored them. The stamps I used were Cathrine’s Gnome Home, Cathrine’s Sapling, Cathrine’s Sapling Branch, Kelly’s Stiched Gnome, and Simple Gift. The long garland is just Sapling Branch stamped side by side 3 times.
Generally, I don’t try to cut right on the line of something. (Its just too hard for me! LOL there is that l-a-z-y thing again!). I usually leave an edge around it. You can see it on the gnome. Before I cut him out, I outlined around him with W-1 gray so he wouldn’t have a stark white border. It makes cutting out so much easier and I think it makes cut out images stand out from the background.
BTW – for the gift, I created the dots by coloring the present green and then holding the tip of my blender pen where I wanted a dot after the green ink dried. The blender fluid will push the green ink out and create a dot.
So then I just assembled. And added those heaps of embellishments.
I added red crystals on the tree and garland. I also added some snow to the windows and ground using the puffy velvet marker. On top of the velvet I added glitter! I know – its a bit extreme – but it was fun!
And yes- we do have those gaudy multicolor lights on our tree – not the elegant white ones. We have a mis-match of homemade and”historical” ornaments. I mostly let the kids decorate it – so there are some branches with 3 ornaments hung on top of each other. Martha Stewart would NOT approve – but it works for us. Sometimes you just need to embrace imperfection.
Thanks for looking! Happy Stamping.