Happy Happy Bears

Challenge #46 at A Blog Named Hero is to use a bokeh effect on a project. According to this article on Wikipedia, bokeh is  "'the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.'" Basically, with this effect, lights in the background of a photo are blurred. So, the challenge is to recreate that look, without using light of course.

For this card, I began by looking through my collection of stencils, and found this stencil by Donna Downey. I figured it would be perfect for this technique. Next, I went through my binder full of Operation Write Home sketches, looking for one with a large background panel to do my stenciling on. I also wanted a place for my greeting and somewhere for the bears to stand. This one seemed to fit the bill perfectly:

I chose my greeting from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' "Happy Happy" set, & paired it with the bears from Hero Arts' "Li'l Hoot" set. (I've had the "Li'l Hoot set for quite some time, and have sadly not used it that often. I will definitely have to remedy that, because it is a fun set, and perfect for cards to send to kids.) I stamped the bears first on watercolor paper using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink. I needed a waterproof ink because I would be coloring them with my Inktense pencils & water. This particular ink holds up well; doesn't bleed; and cleans off even clear stamps fairly well, though it does stain them slightly.

I cut strips of patterned papers using scraps from My Mind's Eye "Chevron" and Graphic45's "Botanical Tea" 6x6" pads. I heat embossed my greeting on the flip side of the brown dot patterned paper, using Recollections "Snow" embossing powder. I die cut that with a Spellbinders Classic Circle die. Then I set those pieces aside while I worked on my bokeh background.

I taped the stencil over a piece of white cardstock, and used Tumbled Glass, Broken China, and Peacock Feathers Distress inks with my ink blending tool. I started by blending the Tumbled Glass over the stencil; then shifted the stencil slightly so the dots were offset from the first ones, went over the stencil again with Broken China; and finished the same way with Peacock Feathers.

I cut a piece of kraft cardstock to 4.25x5.5" and glued it to an A2-size card. I adhered my background piece over that, then positioned & glued my paper strips and greeting. After fussy-cutting the bears and going around the edges with a black brush tip marker to hide the white paper, I glued them down, tucking the baby bear slightly under the greeting piece to ground the pair further. My last step was to use a Sakura white gel pen to do some faux stitching around the greeting circle.

I hope some hero overseas will use this card to write home to his/her son or daughter.

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

Simon Says Stamp's Monday "I Ought to Use this More"
Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps "All About Animals"