Missing Ewe

The current challenge at A Blog Named Hero is "Paper piecing." I wasn't sure at first what to do with this, never really having done paper piecing. Truth be told, I wasn't even sure what paper piecing entailed exactly! Fortunately, I happened upon a couple of videos on YouTube demonstrating paper piecing techniques, so that at least gave me some direction.

Since I was making this card for Operation Write Home, I turned to the sketches they have put out, which I keep in a binder. I knew I wanted to use the sheep & "Missing Ewe" greeting from the  "Missing You" OWH stamp set by Hero Arts, so I used the sizes of those stamps as a starting point to guide me in choosing a sketch. I whittled down my options to just a few, then finally chose this sketch:

I stamped the sheep in black once on a light-beige patterned paper from my scrap stash for a base; then again on a grey striped paper for the nose, ear, and feet; and white cardstock for the eyes. I carefully fussy-cut the pieces out, and glued the grey and white pieces to the beige paper. I went around the outer edges of the paper-pieced sheep with a black brush-tip marker, to give a more finished look to the edge. (This is a tip I picked up from Kristina Werner.)

For the patterned paper squares, I used 3 scraps: the same beige paper I used for the sheep's wool, a yellow chevron from the "Chevron" 6x6" paper pad by My Mind's Eye, and a yellow polka dot from Fancy Pants Design's "Park Bench" 6x6" pad. I rounded the corners of each square with my 1/4" Corner Chomper, and adhered them to a piece of light blue-green cardstock cut to a standard A2 card size.

I used a Spellbinders Classic Circle die to cut a piece of light blue cardstock for a background for the sheep. I cut the scalloped frame with a Spellbinders Lacey Circles die from a darker blue cardstock. I glued those pieces together, then glued the sheep on top and adhered the whole piece to the card front. I applied Glossy Accents to the sheep's pupils, rounded the bottom corners of the card with my 1/2" Corner Chomper, and I was done!

I am entering this in the "Paper Piecing" Challenge #40 at A Blog Named Hero.