The Scrapping Cottage- Happy Go Lucky Elephant

Greetings friends and bloggers.  Today I want to show you my first creations as a Design Team Member of The Scrapping Cottage.  This is purely a selfish reason that I chose this sweet elephant as my first creation.  Today is my son Wesley's 26th Birthday.  He loves elephants-always has.  He carried a stuff elephant around for as long as I can remember.  So Happy Birthday Wesley-this is in honor of YOU!

Isn't this fabulous.  You can find this elephant here or just click on the above picture and it will take you right to it.  If you adore paper piecing as much as I do you are going to love these dies.

So let's talk about this card a little and I will give you the deets.  The banner was made with the Spellbinders Scalloped Banner die, I free hand cut the straight edge banners that back the pretty pearl ones up.   I also used the banner die cut set for the Birthday sentiment.  The letters were done with the Cuttlebug Baby Face typeset dies.  The scalloped square is Spellbinders and the punched floral border is Matha Stewart.

Now about the image.  In this picture you can see that I have created some dimension.  I don't know about you but I love dimension in a card and look for ways to create it.  It brings the whole project alive.  And I bet you are wondering how I got the image to look exactly like the above picture of the die cut packaging.

It was easy!  Let me share that with you.  I cut out the image with gray card stock.  Then I carefully separated all the cut through areas the die produces when you cut with the die.  To color the image I used chalk-yes chalk!!!  I haven't taken my chalk out in ages.  This was so fun.  I ran the chalk along the edges following the die cut picture that the die came in.  I used my fingers to rub the blackgray (I dipped a cotton swab in both to mix) chalk in sort of creating a smudge effect.  I used pink chalk to touch upon the knees, cheeks, and ears and rubbed that with my finger too.  Before you stamp the eyes on the elephant you can use aerosol hairspray to set the chalk.  I cut the pink toe nails with the die and glued them on the hooves.  Then I ran a little black/gray chalk over the top to tone down my pink card stock a bit.

Here is a close up of the dimension created.  I used a 1/8" foam dot placed behind the elephants cheeks and the eyebrows.  I also placed one betweene the first two creases of his nose.  I then applied the image to the die cut base and actually glued his ears to the card stock.  I used 1/16" dots on the body and legs.

As you can see this is the natural way the trunk lays on the image.  You can also curl it a bit if you want it coming ou more.

So that's this project for today.  I hope you check out The Scrapping Cottage for more cute images and designs for your crafting needs.  This sure was fun to create!

Challenges Entered
Allstorts - Anything Goes
Alphabet Challenge - A is for Animal Antics
Card Crafters Circle  -  Die Cuts
Card Making Momma's  - Birthday
Crafty Catz- Favorite Things (Mine is Banners)