Whimsy Stamps ~ Sleeping Dragon Baby

Hey crafty friends, I am back today with a super cute creation that was a commission by one of my brothers. He is one of my biggest fans and will often request special cards for friends and special events in his life. It's always a joy to create for him, knowing he will have such joy giving the card to friends and family. This request was for a baby boy card. I was going through some of my stamp sets and found this beyond adorable Dragon Baby Stamp Set. I knew it was the perfect choice for this card.

I wanted to have this sweet dragon sleeping on his little cloud among pastel hued clouds, so pulled out my Distress Oxide inks and Whimsy's It's Cloudy 6x9 Stencil to create this lovely cotton candy cloudscape. I masked the image with Whimsy Stamps Plain Masking sheets. I stamped and fussy cut the image then laid the mask over the stamped image to allow me to stencil right up to the edges of the stamped design. 

I toyed around with different oxide colours to use for the clouds and settled on Milled Lavender, Spun Sugar and Salvaged Patina. Ironically, when I actually started doing the inking, I ended up using just the ink that was left on my oxide brushes for the pink and purple, because I wanted very soft clouds. So they were oxide inks, but I couldn't say for sure which ones! I did use Spun Sugar last with the pink oxide brush, so will be a mix of that and Kitsch Flamingo left on there. But the purple brush might have had some Villainous Potion on it too. So strictly speaking Milled Lavender wasn't used, but it would be the ink I'd use for this combination if I didn't have such an already inky brush.

The first ink application I did on the clouds was much darker than I meant for it to be, but it doesn't matter, it looks like that part of the sky is recessed from the soft clouds in front, so it gave a bit of a forced perspective to the soft clouds. I wasn't thrilled about it initially, but it didn't ruin the card and was worth keeping going with the ink blending. I love how the clouds turned out in the end. I added two sweet little toning pearl hearts to complete the panel, which were perfect to obscure a little mucky mark up in that corner too.

I show the colouring of this cutie sped up in the video. I love how he turned out. There's a beautiful gemstone called Flourite and it's a mix of these colours, so this wee dragon made me think of that. He's just lovely as a flourite dragon. The beautiful frame shape was actually the waste left over after diecutting a lovely frame with Whimsy's Portrait Frames Die Set. I thought the left over waste around the frame looked a bit like a pillow shape and would work perfectly as a frame for this make. It left a larger aperture  too for more of the pretty clouds to show through. I stamped the sentiment with the same ink I had stamped the wee dragon with, which is Copic friendly Memento Teal Zeal. I love the effect of the tone on tone with the stamping and the colouring. It's a softer look than black outlines and I think looks so lovely on this sweet dragon. I've captured this whole creative adventure in a video which you can see below, so if you'd like to see it coming together, click through to watch. 

Thanks for stopping in to visit today. I hope you enjoyed this sweet make. I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure. Starting this month, I'm on the Whimsy Channel on the 9th, 19th and 29th with a video showing one of my crafty adventures. So I hope you'll come join me there. Until next time, I wish you wonderful and creative week. Hugs, Wends xoxo

(I share thumbnails to the elements I design with in order to make your search for them easier, in case you like something I've used. I do use affiliate links where possible, which gives me a tiny commission but costs you no extra whatsoever. It helps the companies I design for to improve their marketing practice and track my contributions. I am deeply grateful if you use them for these reasons. I am proud to design for the companies I do and always feel happy to share where my inspiration and where my crafty stash comes from. I am occasionally gifted products to use, but I only design for companies whose products I absolutely love and buy for myself. My opinions are always my own.)

Challenge Entries:

Crafty Catz: #718 ~ Anything Goes

Love To Craft: #93 ~ Anything Goes

Love To Scrap: #180 ~ Anything Goes

Craft Rocket Challenges: #138 ~ Animals

Daisy Chain Challenges: #109 ~ 'Birth'day

Mix It Up Challenge: #84 ~ Anything Goes

Unicorn Challenge: #122 ~ No Design Paper

Sparkles Monthly Challenge: #202 ~ Kid's Cards

Addicted To Stamps & More: #521 ~ Make Your Mark

Moving Along With The Times: #191 ~ Use A Colouring Medium