Happy Hedgehog

I recently received a package from Eclectic Paperie (some amazing Crate Paper! I'll share a project using that paper later this week) and the sweet owners of the store, Daisy and Joy, included two stamped images for me to use on future projects! How fab is that??

This card took me outside of my comfort zone, which may seem odd since it's a fairly simple card. But I don't usually use this type of cartoony image...never seem to know what to do with them...and I don't usually use images that require coloring. (Although with all the "Copic Marker" discussion going on lately, I think I'm going to have to jump on the coloring bandwagon!) I decided to be even more daring and use bright colors, another item I don' t typically use in my projects.

The image is colored with SU! markers, and I did try to do a bit of layering and shading, which it seems can be accomplished (although probably not as easily as using a high end marker) if you start with the lightest shade, which you let dry before applying a darker shade. I didn't do a lot of shading as I didn't want to completely ruin my piece, but I had a fun time experimenting with these piece. You can see the shading on the hedgehog better on this close up shot:
I read on Michelle's site (Mish Mash) a few days ago about drawing a line to resemble the ground on images that seem like they need to "sit" on something, rather than them floating in space. This tip certainly helped with this card! I also sponged on some green and blue ink to represent the grass and sky. The polka dots on the boot were created with the end of a paint brush and I added just a hit of "dirt" on the bottom of the boot. Since I had decided to go with a birthday sentiment, I added the tiny hat image from the same "Small Sayings" SU! stamp set to my hedgehog's head.

Once my image was complete I mounted it on the blue patterend paper, which came from an SU! Stampin' Kit. I toyed with adding more paper, etc. to the background but decided that the blue paper looked really nice on **gasp** plain white paper! I simply added the narrow yellow trim around the blue paper, which are stickers from the same Stampin' Kit.

Well for such a simple card, this was quite a long explanation!! Enjoy and happy creating!