Livin' the Wild Life!

This is as wild as my life gets these days...playing with the Wildlife Reserve stamp set! That's OK...I'm lovin' every minute I get to play with new stamps! My Mother-in-law just got this set, and lucky for me she always insists that I use her stamps also. :-) When first looking at this set, I was stumped as to how to use the smaller images. So I looked in the Splitcoast gallery to see if anyone else had some ideas. I came across this card which I used for my inspiration. I loved the unique layout, and I doubt I would have thought of that myself.

First, I cut out an oval shape on some scrap paper using my Coluzzle. I then traced that shape lightly in the center of my kraft card stock. I stamped my images around my penciled guide line using basic black ink. Next, I centered my Coluzzle template over my stamped images and carefully cut my oval shape being careful to stop before I cut into part of the animal design. After I had most of the oval shape already cut, I carefully trimmed the remaining card stock next to each animal.

Now that the hard part was done, I got to go to the fun part...coloring! I used both my pastels and watercolor pencils to color the animals. It was quick and easy to add a hint of color on the Kraft card stock. Then I stamped a background using my Weathered stamp inked in Artichoke. The Shakespeare quote comes from the Touch of Nature set. I stamped that in Chocolate Chip to match the mat. To finish this, I used the Ticket Corner punch and some copper brads in each corner. I didn't glue down the edges of the animals, so they kind of pop off the page and look a little bit 3-D. I really like the way this card turned out!