Rubbernecker Blogger Challenge 12 *Nix the Ribbon*

Good morning!  I've been extra busy the last couple of days but wanted to play in the SCS Tuesday Color Challenge as well as the Wednesday Rubbernecker Blogger challenge so I combined the two.  The challenges during this time of year are always dedicated to creating my Christmas cards. I was stuck for a few minutes on how I could use the colors Sahara Sand, Black and Vanilla for a holiday card. I started sifting through images hoping something would spark a thought. Do you do that? As I was sorting I came across my Kittie Kits-The Moose is Loose set and knew I could make a lovely monochromatic scene using the cabin and trees. The Rubbernecker Challenge is to use any kind of fiber on the project as long as it isn't ribbon.

I stamped trees first that would be on both ends of the cabin as well as one in the center and masked them. I wanted the trees to hide portions of the cabin to create the feel of being nestled in with them. I stamped the cabin where it needed to be and then removed the masks. I masked off the the roof of the cabin and added a few trees behind it and a couple extra on the front and side yard area to complete the scene. The set has three different sizes of the same tree but I wanted a couple in the scene that were even a little smaller so I masked off the bottom portion of the smallest tree with tape, inked it up, removed the tape and stamped. That is a trick you can use if you have only one sized tree and yet want to create several sizes.  Just move your mask up or down on the bottom of the stamped to create different sizes. I brusheda dry watercolor brush directly across the Sahara ink pad and then lightly stippled in color on the front of the house and chimney.  I left the top of the chimney and the roof free of additional color to represent piled snow and did the same with the ground. I didn't want to apply type of sky as I wanted to leave total contrast between the tree/cabin images and the stark vanilla. I am normally a *more is more" kind of girl when it comes to my scenes but this simple elegant monochromatic scene didn't call "more". I embellished the simple scene with a black layer, black brads and a black bulky cotton twill. It appears as ribbon in the photo would it really looks quite rustic and appropriate for this project.

I just wanted to take a minute to draw your attention to how creative you can be by using masking for creating scenes.  This scene was extremely easy to do.  The hardest part of masking is cutting out the masks but you do that once and save them to use over and over. Get an idea in mind of where you want your images to be and remember that you need to plan for the scene layers and stamp the foreground images first, mask and continue on until you have totally finished your scene.

Stamps:  Rubbernecker Kittie Kits-The Moose is Loose

Paper:  Sahara Sand, Vanilla, Black

Ink:  Sahara

Accessories:  Twill, Brads, Brush, Masks