Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge
Not A Card
Good day, fellow crafters. I am delighted to share with you my entry for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. Participating in this challenge was a refreshing experience for me since slim line cards, book markers, and gift tags are not typically my preferred crafting projects. However, I eagerly embraced the opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and take on this challenge. To be honest I had a lot of fun with this and definitely encourage you to participate as well. It was a super easy project and helped to cleanse my crafting pallet. I hope you enjoy and are inspired to head over to Simon Says Stamp and join in the fun.
To create this project I decided to go through my stash and see what I had not used recently or at all to create my design. I am in the process of moving all of my supplies into a purpose-built craft room so many things are still in boxes, but I did run across this cute little stamp of a girl reading that was included in an old Hero Arts monthly collection I had not put away yet and thought it would be perfect to use an image for a bookmark.
I started the creation process by working with the foremost foreground object, the books, and stamping them in black ink on a white cardstock and then masking them off in order to work backward into the image to create a 3D illusion not provided by the stamps themselves. This was also the case for the thought images above the girl’s head. This was very time-consuming but I think it made the end product look so much better. The final stage of the image creation was to use the My Favorite Things English Brick Wall (ST-180) stencil and a light gray ink from Gina K for the wall, then the My Favorite Things Grid stencil with a spot of blue ink also from Gina K to create the tiled floor background image. For the coloring phase, I first removed all of the maskings and then used PrismaColor colored pencils to color in the images. You might be asking yourself why would I use cardstock and not lighter-weight paper for this project. Well even though I knew I was going to eventually laminate the bookmark I wanted the extra rigidity the cardstock would provide over a lighter-weight paper that would likely bend with a lot of repetitive usage.
The final steps of the construction process were to use the My Favorite Things Slimeline and Bookmark Infinity dies (D1871) to cut the project to the final dimension, run it through my laminator to give it durability and strength, punched a hole at the top and included a piece of colored ribbon for visual appeal. I chose to use purple as it corresponded well with the other colors I had chosen and would also be a color that would stand out once the rest of the bookmark was enclosed inside the book it was being used in.
In the end, I am delighted to have taken on the challenge of creating a bookmark for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge. It was a refreshing departure from my usual crafting projects, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process. I encourage you to participate in such challenges as well, as they can offer new and exciting opportunities to explore different creative avenues.
