TTCRD 2 July DT Project

 Hi Lovelies!

Today is challenge day for Design Team B for the Through The Craft Room Door Challenge.  This is a WEEKLY "anything goes" (any type of project and any theme) challenge with 2 design teams who alternate weeks to make projects showcasing the sponsor who often offers PRIZES!

This week's sponsor is Small & Round by Jeremiah Ketner. You can read a bit about him below.
Prize: 5 images (winners choice) and 30% off coupon for any coloring pages on his Etsy store:

"Jeremiah Ketner paints a world to which fairytales belong. His paintings often depict richly colored environments inhabited by a cast of pensive, dreamy young women and whimsical sprites. Each character presents a unique brand of beauty. Renowned throughout the US and internationally, Ketner attributes his influence to Art Nouveau, Japanese Aesthetics and Anime. He resides and creates from his studio in Tokyo, Japan."

Today's project is one of those that appear to be easier on first glance than on execution.  I chose this image - I like the pose of the girl and the cat hair pretties along with her pensive expression.

I'm not much of a hybrid girl so printing her on colouring paper with the background all filled in with a digi print wasn't going to be my thing and to be honest I hadn't given t a lot of thought until I had already started.

I could either cut out the girl as a rectangle or other shape or...fussy cut.  Have you tried fussy cutting a single printed line like the ones coming from her hair ornaments?  Clearly I chose the most sensible option! 🤣🤣🤣

But I digress.  After I had coloured her skin (and before that whole fussy cutting insanity) I started to think about the background.  I have some gorgeous Basic Grey gems with Japanese style patterns but I just couldn't bring myself to cut into them! 

Instead I cut a screen type pattern with a slightly oriental vibe on the Silhouette which I hadn't used in a while.  Behind that I tried blending Distress Oxide Inks.  Yeah I know way bright! 😳😳😳

My relatively newfound appreciation for Removable Glue Dots make them my go-to for keeping things in place to make blending the Distress Oxide Inks reasonably stress free!

I did actually hope the kimono would turn out to be a much stronger pink than the burgundy it ended up.  I took inspiration from the sakura and plum blossoms in her hair.  March/April having been the Sakura Festival in Japan was a big inspiration for the colours even if they didn't exactly turn out the way I expected!

I really REAALLLY need to work on colouring black hair (please don't look too close!).  It's much harder than browns or blondes or red shades.  Her skin also was a bit more tanned than I would have liked, but my lightest shades of markers are begging for a refill.

The original image had circles and a star in her hair in the same places as I put the gems.  I decided I wasn't going to colour around them and by using teeny tiny gems (which I pulled from my cache of nail art supplies), they would give the project some texture.  The largest ones were OK with a Micro Glue Dot (so you can imagine how tiny the rest were).  I ended up cutting slivers off glue dots and kinds balling them up to adhere them.  I'm terrible with liquid glue at the best of times and in such a tiny space it was asking for trouble!

I used a black card base (it ended up being about 5.5" square) then cut file was stuck to the blended background and onto the card base.  I mounted the lovely image onto foam and adhered her to the card base before proceeded with the fiddly task of adhere the gems in her hair.

All that remained was to add the sentiment.  I was imagining a heat embossed strip of vellum across the bottom, but the ascenders and descenders in this Reverse Confetti sentiment made it just too wide.  I ended up cutting around the words leaving just enough to be able to tell that they were embossed on vellum in a sort of rose gold embossing powder by Altenew.

Well here is it in it's entirety:

Thinking of You Card

Don't forget to stop at the challenge page and enter a project for a chance to win a prize!

Love and carefree colouring,