Coloured on Kraft Series | Hippo Birthday ft. MFT "Happy Hippos"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

As crazy as it sounds, I think the Holidays have me a little Lawn Fawn'd out. It wasn't until I was done the whole series that I realized 95% of the cards were based on Lawn Fawn. Whoops. It wasn't intentional. I just didn't get my hands on the Christmas stuff I wanted from other companies in time. (foreshadowing?)

Anyway, today I'm taking a little break from Lawn Fawn, don't get me wrong I still love them, but I just need to take a step back and take a different perspective. Today I have a card featuring MFT's "Happy Hippos" coloured on kraft with coloured pencils.

To begin, I cut down a piece of 65lb kraft cardstock by Recollections and stamped the hippo, balloons and hat from the "Happy Hippos" set with VersaMark ink. I chose to use embossing ink because it doesn't leave harsh stamping lines, and if you have followed this particular series for any length of time, you know just how much I love the no line colouring look.

I masked off the images and used my cloud stencil and soft blue pigment ink by CTMH to create the cloudy background. I had originally thought to make the clouds whiter, but that would have taken away from the panel being kraft - I mean, I would know and you would know, but would the rest of the world understand? So I left it as it was and I'm pretty happy that I didn't shake things up.

I started colouring the balloons using the Black Widow/Scorpion wax based coloured pencils (review coming) and was pretty happy with how they turned out. They lay down a little differently than other wax brands I have - but I'll get into that in the coming review.

For the Hippo, I used my Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils - which are an oil based pencil and I'll have a review of those coming up in the new year as well. I used the warm grays to colour the hippo completely.

I can hear you now -- "what?? different brands of pencils? wax and oil? in the same piece???" Oh I know, not typically something I do. But here's the thing. Out of the 48 Widow/Scorpion pencils - there is one gray. One. And honestly, it isn't even really a good one - but again, I'll get more into that in the review. I promise. If I remember, I'll back link to this post so we can all be righteously indignant together.

To finish off, I mounted the kraft panel to the front of my A2 sized card base and then stamped the greeting from the same set using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think. I could use some cheering today, so even a hello would be great!