1467 Lady Bug Hippo ~ a Sandra Caldwell New Release

Hi everyone! It's New Release Friday at Sandra Caldwell's Etsy shop, Babycakes Digis and Designs and she has some dandy images for us again this week. The Design Team has done their usual fabulous job creating projects with some of them but Sandra always has a few surprises for us, too. This week, I chose to play with the new image called Lady Bug Hippo 1467. I love ladybugs and Sandra's hippos always make me smile so it was a win/win with this image.

I coloured LBH with a mix of Polychromos and Prismacolor pencils, adding Diamond Stickles to her wings. She was fussy cut leaving a narrow white border and then matted with black card stock. Once she was fussy cut a second time leaving a narrow black border, she was popped up with foam tape to give added dimension and to create a natural shadow.

The 6 x 8 inch mixed media paper background was coloured with a brayer and Blue Green Light and Aquamarine DecoArt acrylic paint, giving it a hit and miss approach rather than going for full coverage. It was a clean up sheet where I cleaned my brayer when Gel printing. During the same gel printing session, I also used black acrylic paint and an MFT Weave stencil, so I cleaned that off on this background, too. Why waste all that yummy paint and pattern? Stamping was done with Jet Black Archival Ink and a VLV circle stamp before molding paste was scraped through Joggles Mini Punchinella Quintet stencil circles. Two pieces of washi tape were layered to give  LBH somewhere to stand so her little wings didn't get tired.

The sentiment was printed on white card stock and cut into sections. These were matted with black card stock and popped up on foam tape. Three hearts were die cut from the red and white washi tape, outlined with black, and adhered above the saying on the right side. This brings that red as well as the dotty pattern to the opposite corner of the page causing the eye to travel through it. A simple border was doodled around the edge and Black Big Brush Pen was used to ink the white edges of the page. A black mat was added to the page to frame it as well as adding strength to the page.

Thanks for joining Lady Bug Hippo and me today. To see more of Sandra's wonderful new releases which will be in the shop later, and also see what our talented DT members did with them, be sure to drop by Sandra Caldwell Stamp Fans Facebook group, where they will be posted throughout the day. Pop by Sandra's Etsy shop, too, when you get a chance. You are sure to see many images that inspire you to create!

Life is good; so is art.
Bonnie