This post was my first for the Scrapbook Stamp Society, and I only wanted to save it, but it went and published instead!! Grr not what I wanted to do,but its done, and before I had chance to get too nervous as well!!
But this post isn't about me its about a Digi Stamp by Heather Valentin, Witching Hour, please see the Shop for details, which haunted me all night, and nearly drove me out of bed to go do her, but Hubby would have killed me!!
Here she is..................
The good thing about Digi Stamps is the ability to Manipulate them in a Graphics Program, you can re-size them, turn them, cut them out and place them directly on a background, or simply print and color.
This lady had to be quite large for me, so I took her into My Craft Studio, and thought for a bit! She had to be a statement piece, so I printed her out just slightly smaller than A5, and although this time I have portrayed her as a White Witch, or Good Witch, I think next time I will go darker.
I started with my Promarkers, by Letraset, using colors: Black, Cool Grey 4, Henna, Prussian, Forest Green, Rose Pink, Arctic Blue, Pastel Blue, Lemon, Primrose, Sun-kissed Pink, Almond, and Metallic Silver. I wasn't totally happy with the effect, so I have some Cosmic Shimmer Mica Inks, which I used to Intensify the colours in the Hood and Bottle: Lilac Blue, Summer Plum, and Purple Violet.
The one part that caused me some issues were her Nails..........I wanted her to be a White Witch, so normal Witch colours weren't going to be of use, so no black, purple or green, but they are Talon like.........in the end I settled for another cosmic Shimmer Mica Ink, Cosmic Blush, so they don't stand out too much, but they will suddenly catch the light and the mica sparkle will draw the eyes.
I added some Crystal glitter to the webs on the windows, with a Quickie Glue pen, and was nearly done.....but I wanted the eyes to "pop" a bit more, and still had to decide what colour to do the bottle top.........I have some Anita's 3-D Clear Gloss Finish, and that did the trick, as it has given her eyes a real sparkle and added dimension to the Glassy bottle stopper.
I matted and layered her onto some embossed texture silver Mirri Board, and she was done, so now for the back ground........
As she is quite large, it had to be a large card base, So I matted some Dark grey Pearlescent card onto some A3 Grey card stock, then went hunting for a back ground. So I chose a background from Jem's Designs Spellbound CD, apt in the circumstances, and also printed off the Spell Book on the CD, onto some postcard sized Glossy Photo Card.
Next I matted the background layer onto the Pearlescent card, and made up the Book of Spells.
Now for a sentiment.......Now this was hard, but the word Gramarye kept yelling at me, in Old English its actually the name for a Book of Spells, which suits, so the rest of the sentiment had to be in Olde English as well, so I popped into My Craft Studio again, and chose a back ground from the Parchment Delights Collection, Butterflies Borders and Bows, and added my text in.....Olde English Script Font!
I have a Die Cutting Machine, so I got my Spellbinders Ornate Artisan Tags and Accents die out and edged the sentiment with the Cosmic shimmer Summer Plum Mica ink, as a Promarker nib can be a bit fiddly to get in the curves.
The next bits left me with some thinking to do....Spell ingredients for embellishments! Could I remember the rest of the rhyme, "eye of newt, something of Toad........" The answer was no, of course, so I had to make it up as I went along!
Some wings I cut from the remains of the Mirri board I had used earlier, with the Provo crafts Cuttlebug Embossing Plus Vintage Collage folder, and used some Adirondack Purple Twilight Alcohol ink over it, A bats wing, from Pearlescent Black Paper, the spiders eyes were some holographic card, punched and trimmed to a hexagon, a snakes eye from yellow and black paper, some Pheasant Feathers from my stash, and some Crystal Glitter for the pile of Rainbow dust and the Cobweb in the bottom corner.
Finally DONE, now perhaps I can go to sleep tonight?
The important thing for me is that the whole card has to speak to you, you can have the most fantastic image in the world, but is it a complete card? Or can you enhance the impact of the image with some embellishments and thought? Add interest, add background to the image, give it more depth and dimension? A lot of time its the little details that bring the image to life and flesh it out, notice she's in front of everything but the Book of Spells? She is the important image, offering her Book of Spells, which is why it is just in front of her.
I hope you like her, and I hope you will pop over to the Shop and have a go at her for yourself, as she is very cleverly drawn, try covering half her face with your hand, then swap sides..................And keep your eye on this page, as I am going to re-do her at some point as she should have been done! She had been bugging me all day, as I knew there was something else in there!!
Lou
xx
