LPSC28 and a Tutorial!!

Happy Monday! What a fun and busy weekend we had over here. I hope yours was good and you're ready for the week! :) Of course Mondays over here mean a new challenge from the {Little Paper Shop}!

Some NEWS over at LPS this morning that I wanted to share! Julia a new forum site and we'd love to have you join us for fun project sharing, chats, and more! Click here to visit the forum - see you there. :) ALSO, there is newa coupon code for 15% off the entire purchase active RIGHT NOW. Yeah!! Who doesn't love coupon codes?? All you have to do is enter the code NEWLOOK at checkout. What a deal! Coupon code is valid until August 31st.

This week's challenge on the LPS blog is to use YOUR favorite color combo challenge! Well my favorite color combo is ALL of them, I think it depends on the image, the layout, my MOOD, LOL. So I'm sharing a card today that I made for the spread in the June issue of Scrapbook News and Review as their Guest Cardmaker. This card also had a tutorial to go along with it, so I will share that with you as well. Before I get to all that, I just wanted to remind you to check out the LPS blog for more inspiration, and if you play along with us, you will have a chance to win two free digis from the {Little Paper Shop}! Link up your post on the LPS blog to enter. If you upload your creation, use keyword LPSC28.

Custom-Colored Background Cloud Tutorial

Supplies - Image or paper you want to add the clouds to, cloud template (mine is home made!), ink, sponge, scratch paper for under your work.

Instructions:

1. If you don't have one, you'll need to make a cloud template. You can use acetate (a transparency sheet), heavy plastic, such as a kid's toy package or clear box, or even paper. If you do use paper be careful because ink will transfer off if you try to use a different color, so you might need several for different colors. To make the template I just hand-drew some puffy clouds. You can see from the photo that my template is not symmetrical, which I did on purpose. I didn't want the clouds to look too much "the same" as I work with them, so I intentionally tried to give it some variety. For this template I used a piece of packaging from some markers I had bought.

2. Starting at the bottom of your piece, set the cloud template onto your project where you want to begin. Get some ink onto your sponge, then dab off just a bit onto the scratch paper so you don't start off with a dark blob where the ink is the heaviest. Then, beginning with the sponge on the template, drag the inky sponge off and onto the paper with an upward motion.

3. Continue this pattern of inking up the sponge, sponging off onto scratch paper and then dragging the sponge from the template onto the paper. You will work from the bottom up and keep moving the template until you are done. You can vary the position of your template so that your clouds don't look too much the same as you work upwards.

4. Now your project is finished. Some optional finishing touches include sponging the edges and adding a bit of ink color to any areas that are too "white" to fit into the rest of the project. To do that, simply ink up your sponge, sponge off WELL onto scratch paper and then very lightly drag over the areas you want to add a hint of color too. You can always go back and add more color, but you can't take it away, so use this sparingly!

5. Another way I use this technique is to add clouds behind a person or scene on a card. When you do this, you will want to make a mask of your image so that you don't accidentally get the cloud ink onto your finished product. Mask off your image {you will probably want to tape it down using repositionable adhesive} and then proceed to add clouds per the above instructions. When you remove the mask you'll have a lovely sky behind your image, but the image itself is clean!

6. Finish project using this piece. You can see mine at the top of this post. I wanted to add - by no means did I invent this "technique", however this is my own written and photographed description of how *I* do it. That's all!

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you have a good one. :)