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Sunday, September 14, 2008

A "Close Enough" Tutorial

First - have you seen the new Doodle Factory Halloween images???? I just got mine and hardly knew where to start they are so insanely cute. I will be making lots of fun Halloween stuff with them, so stay tuned. If you want any of these images, click here to order and use promo code "savetenLF" to get your DF images for 10% off!!! This is good for anything on the site, by the way.

Okay - want my "Close Enough Tutorial"? I've never been much for cutting OR coloring, believe it or not, and now it seems like everything I make has both detailed cutting and careful coloring in it. I think the DoodleFactory did it to me. Well sometimes you're cutting around very fine images, and you end up leaving some white cardstock sticking out beyond your image - see the first photo. That is totally unacceptable. Well never fear if you have the impatient stamping disorder I do. Just get out your E40 Dark Black Copic and cover those pesky white edges up! Much easier than continuing to cut, IMHO (In my humble opinion). I also hold the marker perpendicular to the edge of the cardstock and color the very edges if I'm going to pop an image up off my card, as I did in this case. When you look at my finished card, you'll see that all the white ugly edges on my pumpkins have magically disappeared, with a very tiny effort! It really cleans up your cut images - try it out! And you don't need Copics - a black felt tip Bic or even a Sharpie would work just fine.

So for this card, I stamped "Trouble", the kitty's haunting dead relatives in white on black cardstock. Then I highlighted all the feline ghosts with a white pencil. I masked and stamped the three pumpkins on a sheet of Whisper White, colored them with Copics using Zindorf's purple and orange pumpkin for inspiration, and cut them out as a single piece. I touched up the edges with my Dark Black Copic. Then I stamped and colored Trouble. The orange paper is from my new Basic Grey Ambrosia pad that I got with my Doodle Factory images. It really has some cool patterns in it. I stamped the greeting from "Graveyard Sentiments" in black on a scrap of this paper. Then I stuck Trouble down and popped the pumpkins up in front of him with dimensionals. I mounted all that onto Lovely Lilac and added little stripes with my white gel pen around the border.

I really like that purple with the orange - it looks like a spooky light is shining on the pumpkins.

What do you think?

9 comments:

  1. oh my goodness! that trouble is so cute! "busted!" is what it looks like just happened to him!

    now i really have to try that coloring technique. very cute card, although i don't know if i'd want to be haunted by someone i loved.

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  2. This card is so cute ... love those colors.

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  3. You know, my momma always said that I loved Trouble...I guess she was right!

    Man, to think all this time I have been just meticulously cutting away those tiny pieces of cardstock. Well no more! Thanks for that tip!

    Love the purple with the orange...I can feel me using that tonight when I do some Booglie Eyes coloring.

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  4. I've been seeing these doodle factory stamps everywhere lately and they are really tempting me!!! Love the tip for the white edges...one of those ones where you think...now why didn't I think of that? too clever, you are :)
    Oh, and thanls for the blogger tips too...I HOPE I've fixed the picture problem, so maybe you can let me know if you're getting the whole thing in reader next post?? I am an ancient historian after all and this techno stuff baffles me endlessly :)

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  5. Wow - I really **LOVE** how you colored those pumpkinheads!! The card is beautiful!

    It was actually in the Starving Artistamps gallery I first found the link to your blog..and now I've become a dedicated lurker here. ;D

    Can't wait to get my latest not-so-small-order of DF-stamps....unfortunatley it takes a while for them to travel across the Atlantic..

    TFS!

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  6. I think it looks awesome!
    Hugs and smiles

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  7. I LOVE this little scene you've created and you better believe that once I have the time to put down my pencils and pick up the stamp pads, I'll be heading back to all of your fabulous tutorials.

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  8. This is sooooooooo cute! Ok I need to figure out where/when/how/why/etc you teach classes here in Austin and GO!! I just love your blog, I'm so glad I "found" it!

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  9. Great card! The colors are fantastic! Thamks for the tutorial too!

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