A Very Special Cutie - Coloring with Stencils

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When I sat down to make today's card I had a sudden flashback to a shopping trip with my friend Mel - the chef for my retreats.

She was very carefully looking through the cutie-type oranges at the store to pick some for retreat, and she was looking for a particular kind of wrinkly small orange that she told me was absolutely the best. 

When someone who can cook like Mel can cook tells you a particular kind of orange is the best orange, you can bet your bippy it's the best orange. 

Thankfully, she found some, and so I am able to confirm that they are pretty much the best orange around. I actually have not seen them since because I haven't shopped in a grocery store for seven years! 

I don't like shopping of any kind in person - I never have. So when Instacart launched here, I was emancipated from this dreaded task, and saved hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars shopping for groceries online. Impulse buys are real, and they steal from your budget in a pretty horrifying way, as I learned after I stopped shopping. As much as I hated shopping, I did enjoy discovering new things from time to time, and little things like this fleeting orange that just makes a brief appearance every year are no longer part of my life. 

So it's a happy memory of a delightful fruit shared with a delightful friend, and that's what was in my head when I made today's card.

I have an unreasonable bias towards the fizzy stencil I'm using today, so I thought I'd show you how I "color" with it. 

First - I cut both a positive and negative mask for the cuties image from this graphic and fun cuties stamp set. Then I masked the oranges and leaves and used Electro Pop Loud Lime ink to stencil the background. I removed those masks and put down the background part of the mask and used the same stencil and Electro Pop orange to fill in the oranges. Then I just doodled half of the leaf images with a Copic multiliner and stamped the sentiment. 

I deliberately mis-aligned the stencil to enhance the distinction between foreground and background, but it's just as easy to make them seamless. 

Isn't that so clean and fun?

Here are all the supplies I used today.

STAMPS- Little Cutie - Gina K Designs [ GNK ] GKD Amalgam Ink Pad- Jet Black [ GNK ] STENCIL- Fizzy - Gina K Designs [ GNK ] Electro Pop Ink Pads- Set of 8 - Gina... [ GNK ] Life Changing Blender Brush: 2-Pack [ PFS ] Understand Blue MINI Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Slimline Folded... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #3... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #1... [ CTC ] Understand Blue Card Making Bundle #2... [ CTC ] Art Anthology BIG CRAFT MAT 24x36 311473 [ SSS ] MISTI Stamping Tool [ MSP | SSS | ELH ] Rotatrim Professional Series Cutter -... [ BLIC ] Teflon Bone Folder - Ellen Hutson LLC [ ELH | SSS ] Crafter's Companion GEMINI... [ SSS ] Scor-Pal MINI SCOR-BUDDY Scoring... [ SSS ] Storage Envelopes, Medium 25pk,... [ ELH ] CheckOutStore Stamp & Die Clear... [ CHC ] Extra Large -50 pk, Avery Elle Stamp... [ ELH ] Lawn Fawn STAMP SHAMMY Cleaner LF1045 [ SSS | CST ] Airtable: Organize your stamps & dies [ ART ]

If you are looking for the lumpy bumpy oranges in stores, AKA Citrus Reticulata oranges in Utah, they are briefly available in the April/May time frame. Sunkist produces them, grown in the US, and sometimes they come in a little bag. Like all mandarins and lots of citrus (this one is oversized) they are native to Southeast Asia, but like my little calamondin and other citrus, they do well in Texas and Florida. 

Loveyameanitbye.

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