Garden Critters

We got to work with Libby Hickson and one of the new Spring releases from Hero Arts called Garden Critters for my SCT Crop and Create class. To be honest I wasn't sure what I thought of this set, it certainly wasn't one I would ever have picked to buy, but I like colouring wee animals, so that always gets a big tick and the fence with it's die-cut turned out to be a really cool feature so it just goes to show that a good class can open your eyes up to a stamp set. I really liked the clouds, grass and sun all-in-one stencil we received with our class kit too. This was my first class I've done with Libby and she was really down to earth and made whoopsies just like we do too (she ended up with blue grass in her sky). The only bad thing about multiple things on one stencil was you need to use lots of post it notes. I also ended up using my own cloud stencil for one example as the stencil is not long enough to cover 5 -1/2" as we were doing a different orientation than the "norm".

This is what Card one looks like but in reality the front panel is just the fence, so the card opens upto reveal this:

The second card is similar but we used the oval dies we received in our Brutus Monroe class kit and the fence inside the card is popped up:

This is the card I used my own mini cloud stencil from MFT for and even though the grass side of the stencil wasn't long enough either it was easy enough to continue on with blending more grass. Libby said she learnt this fold/pop-up element from Jennifer McGuire, in essence we scored a 4-1/2" x 3" piece of white card stock on the longest edge at 1", 1-3/4", 2-3/4" and 3-1/2". Then we cut the piece in half on the shortest side at 1-1/2" to give us 2 scored pieces of 4-1/2" x 1-1/2". The box that is formed the longest side is attached to the card.

The last card was also a cool technique we made paneling using matching pieces of 1/2" card stock. We were given a half piece of an A2 Mist cardstock but I cut my pieces as if I was making a portrait card not landscape. It didn't look right with the oval cut out from card 2 so I just used my Balmy Blue (SU!) cardstock that I own.

This is what we received in our class kit. The stamp set has matching dies for everything apart from the words.

I only own one Hero Art inkpad, their granite so I used a combination of my Pinkfresh Studio inks  (Fresh Pear or Meadow, Grassy Knoll and Summer Shower) and Catherine Pooler inks (Apricot and Chiffon) for my blending and I've coloured in my images with my Copics.

The only thing Libby asked us to do before we started working with the stencil was to work out how the sun mask fitted in, she suggested using washi tape (I used one of my purple tapes) to mark a ray and where it fitted in for our class. As rubbing alcohol is the method of cleaning stencils nowadays it wasn't a long term fix, suggestions from the group was to use nail polish which made me think of my White Posca pen which seems pretty permanent IMO.

Last but not least Libby's sneak peeks for us pre-class.

#cropandcreatedelivered #SCTbigboxevent

✿ Karen ✿