In May of 1974 Hero Arts was born in California. On this day in 1974, in New York, I was born! This post is a part of the A Blog Named Hero May Challenge celebrating 45 years of Hero Arts.
Supplies:
From The Vault Bold Prints background stamp
Color Layering Birthday Stamp Set
Birthday Cake Color Layering Frame Cuts
Inks: Ultra Pink, Raspberry Jam, Cup O’ Joe, Charcoal, Clear Embossing & Watermark Ink
Polychromos Colored Pencils: Magenta, Crimson, Mid Purple Pink, Fuchsia, Walnut Brown, Van Dyke Brown, Burnt Sienna, Bistro, Warm Grey 3, Warm Grey 4, Warm Grey 5
Copic Markers: E53, E55, E57, E59
I began with a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″ piece of ivory card stock. I stamped the background stamp on the card stock with half pink and half brown inked up on the diagonal. I stamped it on scrap paper first then stamped of the panel for a subtle background. I inked up the edges of the piece with pink and brown coordinating with the stamping.
Next, I die cut the cake image first then stamped the layers in order to get proper placement of the candle. I placed the paper the image was cut from in the Misti, lined up the stamp, placed the die cut piece back in the cut paper and stamped all the layers. I should have done this with the balloons and stars as well to speed things up but I didn’t think of it at the time.
The balloons and stars were stamped both first and second generation to add variety but no more ink colors. Once all the stamping and die-cutting was complete I used colored pencils to add dimension to the stamped images. I particularly tried to emphasize the icing on the cake. I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment on a separate piece of card stock and trimmed it down.
Once all the images were colored, I added foam tape and arranged them how I thought they looked best. I did not remove the back of the tape at this point so I could move the images to stamp some streamers and stars directly to the background. I used a t-square ruler and the darkest copic to draw a line about an inch from the bottom to ground the cake. I used more copics to add shading under the line and as a shadow under the cake.
I stamped and heat embossed the sparklers behind the candle. Then I removed the adhesive backers and adhered the images to the panel. I used a shimmer pen to add sparkle and a white gel pen to add highlights. I used a black pen to add a string tied around the balloon. I adhered the panel to an A2 card base and I was done.
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