Designing with Kraft Paper

Happy Monday!  I have two cards today.  Both were made for the Color Throwdown Challenge this week.  Really wonderful colors - green, kraft and white.  Both cards use beautiful stamps from Bloom Art Stamps.  

Kraft paper gives a very rich look on projects but presents certain challenges with color. Since colored pencils are a more opaque medium, they sit on top of the kraft paper and retain much of their color.  But dye inks tend to soak into the paper so when using them on kraft they can lose some of their vibrancy.

I used Prismacolor pencils for this card.  I love Prismacolors for their blending ability although on this card I really only had to blend the green shades - the white and brown background shading was created by using different pressures of the pencil. When coloring some of the smaller areas with the white pencil, I inadvertently colored over some of the lines.  To darken them and make them crisp, I drew over them with a multiliner. I also used it to color the edges of the top panel after fussy cutting it out.

Stamps - Bloom Art Stamps Peonies Garden Collection
Pencils used - Lime Peel, Chartreuse, Moss Green, Light Umber, White

For the second card I stamped all images on the kraft cardstock.

The background florals were second generation stamped in several shades of green.  Knowing that they would lose a bit of vibrancy on the kraft, I picked fairly bright greens.  The bird was stamped in the Baked Brown Sugar ink and I used a sponge dauber with Soft Suede to ink the top edges of the bird stamp to add a little depth.  I used the same technique of inking the stamp and sponging around the edges to create the two tone main flower.

I wanted to frame the bird and add some white to the card.  I decided to use a stacked die cut for the frame.  This technique gave me a subtle white border to the frame. The die I used is a My Favorite Things pierced rectangle. I cut the top out of kraft and six additional ones from white cardstock.

After gluing the stack together, I cut down the bird panel to fit the frame and adhered all to the card.  Finally, I fussy cut the flower and adhered it and sequins to the card.  I just felt it needed some bling!

Stamps - Bloom Art Stamps Spring Bird and Bird Paradise
Inks - Old Olive, Lemon Lime Twist, Summer Starfruit, Baked Brown Sugar, Soft Suede

Thanks for visiting!