This very cute owl is a Gina K Designs stamp called Birthday Hoot.  The set was a gift from a very special friend of mine, and her offer came out of the blue, which makes it even more special.

The card (above) was very simple to make.  Firstly I stamped the image with Black Archival Ink. Because I intended using Distress Markers to colour the image, I needed something that wouldn’t run. (Something to keep in mind when using distress inks or markers. If your image is stamped with a water-based ink, it will run when coloured with water-based products!)

I coloured the owl itself with distress markers and an aqua pen, but did something entirely different for the balloons.

I made some masks so that I could stamp within the boundaries of the balloon outlines.

If you haven’t used masks before, they can be an absolute miracle at times. Basically they will cover most of your image to ensure you don’t get mess on the rest of the image.

In this case, because I wanted to do something different for each balloon, I needed three masks.

This is the first mask I made.  As you can see, I used packaging from a sheet of pearls. So I stamped my owl on the packaging, and then cut out one of the balloons.  Unfortunately it was way too thick, and when I covered the stamped image on the cardstock, it didn’t completely cover the balloon because of the thickness. (You’ve probably guessed it’s the balloon closest to the owl.)

For that very reason, I changed over to lightweight cardstock.

You’ll notice that each of the masks is cut in a different place, and that’s exactly what you need.  (It might seem like a waste of cardstock, but keep in mind you can use these over and over again.)

Once the masks were ready, I stamped each one with a different pattern, and different coloured ink. The stamps I used are from Gina K Designs Perfect Pennants.

I added a strip of DP along the side of the card as you can see, but originally it wasn’t there.  Somehow, in the process of stamping my image, I got smudges of black ink down the side of tthe card. This was a perfect way to cover it up. And to be perfectly honest, I feel it looks better with it.

I added a touch of Star Dust Stickles on the pom-pom on the owls hat, then some Glossy Accents to make his eyes shine like a real owl.

Last but not least, I stamped the greeting on red cardstock, using white embossing powder.  I used one of the colours in the card to pull it all together.

I added a little piece of dimensions to lift the banner in the centre.

That’s it – all done!

**This card was created for the Crafty Card Gallery in my capacity on their Design Team.

As always, if you want to comment, and the comment box isn’t showing, click the title of this post and it will magically appear!