Can't Wait to Hug You

Since A Blog Named Hero issued their Challenge #46, "Bokeh," I've become interested in recreating a light effect using basically just color media and paper/cardstock. (I've done a couple of cards for this challenge already, which you can see here and here.) I got the complete set of Faber-Castell gelatos a couple of months ago, and had not used them much. I read this blog post this morning, in which she used gelatos to stamp with, and it gave me the kick in the pants I needed to break mine out. Since I had some free time this afternoon, I decided to give bokeh another go, this time with Distress ink & my gelatos.

Since I am going to send this card to Operation Write Home, I started by cutting a piece of white cardstock to 4.25x5.5", the size of a standard A2 card. I taped Simon Says Stamp's "Falling Stars" stencil over it, and smooshed Versamark ink though the stencil. Once I had gotten enough ink on the cardstock, I removed the stencil, sprinkled American Crafts Zing! clear embossing powder over the cardstock, and heat embossed the stars.

To create the bokeh effect, I first blended Tumbled Glass Distress ink over the whole panel to set a light blue base color. Then I took two colors of gelatos and made random dots on the cardstock. I used my water brush to spread and blend the gelato colors, so they have a soft appearance. In hindsight, I wished I had used watercolor paper instead of cardstock, since I ended up using quite a bit of water. But I was very careful, and didn't have too much pilling of the cardstock, so it worked out OK.

To create the moon, I die cut a circle from white cardstock using one of the dies from the Spellbinders Standard Circles SM set. I scribbled yellow gelato onto it, and blended the color with my finger. That gave it a subtle, mottled look, which I must admit was a pleasant surprise, since I'd expected a more solid color.

I stamped the owls from Hero Arts "Li'l Hoot" set onto watercolor paper with Ranger Archival Jet Black ink, and, after giving the ink a few minutes to dry thoroughly, colored them with Inktense pencils. I fussy cut the image, and went around the white edges with a black brush tip marker, to blend them in with the black stamping. I determined where I wanted my moon on the card front, and glued it down, going off the edge slightly. I glued the owls on top of the moon, and trimmed off the overhanging portion.

I decided I wanted to use 2 of the greeting stamps from the same Hero Arts set. I stamped each onto white cardstock with Versamark, and heat embossed them with Recollections "Snow" embossing powder. After cutting out the banner shapes, I blended Chipped Sapphire ink over them, and glued them to the card front. Finally, I adhered the whole front panel to a top-folding A2 card base.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes"
Simon Says Stamp's Monday "I Ought to Use This More" (gelatos)