New Home Card

Houses have always been a love affair for me. When I was just four or five years old, I would beg my parents to drive through certain neighborhoods in Cincinnati, where the houses had that 'storybook quality'. Many were half timbered and/or stuccoed. (There are not as many of these abodes outside of Boston where I live now, and I miss them.)

The very first house stamp set I bought was 'Home Sweet Home' by Crafty Secrets. I love the images  and use them for holiday and new-home cards. This set is one of my favorites and I never tire of the different ways it may be rendered.

One technique that works particularly well with Clear Art Stamps's  designs is outlining. The image is stamped in a faded black, grey or brown (dye ink only), and then the lines are drawn over in a bolder hue of the  colors I wish to make each area. I use my set of fine-point 'Sharpie' markers on the outlines, and fill in the centers with a lighter version of the same color, but in colored pencil.

 DISCLAIMER

 At the time I made this card, I could not get a good light image from the inks I had. Usually this works by stamping off lightly once, and then repeating the stamp on the paper you'll be coloring on. I still wanted to use this technique, so I scanned my stamped image and then printed it out on draft. (You can see some pixelation (not the storybook kind) in this image.)

For the card I used a Brenda Walton card from 'Postmarks' and recut the hole with my Labels Two Nestabilities set. I Cut the border to the window with the same size die and then again with the next size larger, and finished by running it through my Cuttlebug embossing folder.

Please leave me a comment and tell me if you like (or don't like) this technique.

Supplies: Crafty Secrets 'Clear Art Stamps' set 'Home Sweet Home', K and Co card by Brenda Walton, Papertrey Picket Fence Die, Cornish Farm (defunct) running rabbit stamp, Cuttlebug 'Birds and Swirls' embossing folder, white Prismacolor pencil, gold 'Liquid Pearls', and misc paper flowers and brad.