A little while ago I discovered a great technique for making a patterned background, that I had not tried before and I must say that I love it! It involves the use of a plastic tub (the old-style wood-mount stamp containers from Stampin' Up! are ideal!) a handful of glass marbles, a few drops of Classic Stampin' Ink Refill and a LOT of fun! I have to say it is one of my all-time favourite techniques for making really interesting backgrounds...
Here are a couple of cards I've made using the giraffe and the lion from the fabulously versatile Zoo Review stamp set - hope you like them!
I used the colours Soft Suede, Old Olive and Crumb Cake for the rolling marble background to give it an African savanna grassland feel - perfect for the lion and giraffe to hide in! I coloured the magnificent beasts in with a blender pen and the same colour palette plus a little So Saffron and Pumpkin Pie, then roughed the edges slightly with the Stampin' Distress tool, Finally I sponged around the edges of the Naturals Ivory cardstock to soften the look and wrapped a little Natural Linen Thread around the card before assembling it together!
Here is a closer look at the magnificient King of Beasts:
Over at SUO Challenges they have a challenge (#79) for showing your favourite technique on a project using only Stampin' Up! products...hopefully these cards will qualify as they use two of my favourite techniques - the rollling marble background technique plus the use of blender pens to 'water colour' paint in stamped images...
Shaking marbles around in a case is great fun - although can be a little noisy if you are teaching several people how to do it and they are rattling their boxes vigorously whilst giggling at the fun of it all!
I love the Zoo Review stamp set and have several more projects to show you over the next few weeks, so please do come back and visit my blog again soon and please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know what your favourite paper-crafting techniques are in the meantime.
Top tip: don't lose your marbles - you never know when you might need them to rustle up a cool card or two!!
Lucy
