Hi there! Today is the day… the Essentials By Ellen August 2019 release is finally available! We have a variety of fabulous autumnal and holiday products to share with you, with lots of inspiration on the blog hop! You should have arrived here from Elena’s blog, and your next stop is Julie’s blog. I have two cute (not spooky!) Halloween/autumn cards to share with you today. (I’ll save my holiday cards for a post for next week!) Let’s get started with the details!
For my first project, I used the darling new Bear Ware 4 to create a little fall scene. I realized when creating this project that I don’t have the original Bear, but luckily the Bear Ware 4 stamp set has lots of elements that make it so you don’t even need the big bear, including a little baby bear! I began by using my T-square to draw a line for the ground, then stamped my little scene with Intense Black ink, using some Post-It notes for quick masking.
I colored the images using Copic markers, trying to keep the colors a bit more pastel rather than the traditional technicolor palette for fall. I also used the Life Changing Blender Brushes and some very light shades of pink, coral, and yellow ink to do a bit of a sunset behind my scene. I didn’t bother with masking the images, because the colors were so pale and the Blender Brushes do such a lovely job of subtly blending the color that I wasn’t worried about the ink blending marring my Copic coloring!
Finally, I added a (super cheeky and super cute) sentiment from the Bear Ware 4 set using some more Intense Black ink.
For my second project, I used the new Happy Haunting stamp set to create a darling panel of custom patterned paper. The images in this stamp set are so whimsical and cute. I don’t go in much for “scary” Halloween, but the sweet little smiles on the skeleton, bat, and ghost made for a sweet little Halloween card! When stamping custom patterned paper, I like to vary the angles at which I orient the individual stamps to create a more seamless and random look. I knew that I wanted the primary color palette to be that pastel palette that I used on the previous card, so I limited the number of bats and made sure to add extra candy corn! 😉
I started by stamping the sentiment from The Last Bite in the center, then stamping my image outlines all around it at various angles and distances apart. After I’d stamped all of my outline images, I went back in and added the little trio of yellow stars, rotating the stamp as I went to make them look more random. Before beginning my coloring, I added a few tiny black dots with a Copic Multiliner pen just to fill in any gaps in the pattern. To achieve good balance on custom stamped patterned panels, I like to start with my largest images (the outline stamps), then the next smallest image (the stars), and finally the tiniest images (the dots) fill in the gaps.
Finally, I colored in my images using my Copic markers in a pretty coral, buttery yellow, and white color scheme, again keeping away from that typical vivid technicolor palette so frequently used on Halloween cards. Perfect to send to my 4 year old niece!
Well, that’s all for my project today. I hope you’ve enjoyed these cute little autumnal projects. If you haven’t checked out the full August Essentials By Ellen release, you definitely should. It’s chock full of fantastic fall and winter holiday products. I’ll share some Christmas-themed projects in the next few days! Your next stop is Julie’s blog.
Now, to celebrate the new release blog hop, we have a few giveaways! We’ve got super fun prizes!!! One random & lucky commenter will win $25 to the EH shop and one will win the whole July Essentials by Ellen release!!! To enter for a chance to win, make sure to leave comments at each stop along the hop! Comment before Thursday, August 15th at 11:59pm PST. Winners will be notified by email.