The Halloween Card That Wasn't...

I was able to play with some "new to me" stamps that one of my generous benefactors gave me, the GinaK Designs set called "Nesting."  (Thanks Michelle!)  I really liked the owl image, and since I was doing Halloween cards this past week, I decided to go all fancy with it. 

I made this--

I stamped the owl with Memento Tuxedo Black on some light gray paper, and colored it with copic markers.  I used E25, E29, E53, for the feathers, and YR12 on the feet and beak and eyes.  I also used my glitter pen on the eyes, but it doesn't show in this picture.

Then for the background, I grabbed my extra large circle punch from Fiskars, and made a mask.  I placed the circle I punched where I wanted it, and used my repositionable Tombo tape to secure it.  Then, I pulled out some of my $1.00 stamp pads from Studio G and some Stampin' Up Perfect Plum, as well as some Broken China Distress Ink, and more Tuxedo Black.  I used sponge daubers and went from lightest to darkest to create my night sky.  I did LOTS of coats of ink, because things dry very differently, as I'm sure you have found for yourself. 

When I was happy with the sky, I took off the circle and masked off the sky.  I used a very soft yellow chalk ink and did a pouncing technique direct to paper with the ink pad to get as much ink as possible on my paper.  Then I went back with some white ink, and then went back in with the same yellow just right around the edges. 

After I was happy with the moon itself, I took the mask off and used the yellow on a dauber in order to infuse the sky with a bit of moon glow.  I also did the edges of the owl, to make it look like it was being backlit a bit.  I added some trees from two other GinaK sets, "Follow You Dreams" and "Happy Camper".  I really need to get myself a dedicated set of trees.  Anyone have a set of trees they ADORE?

I used GinaK Designs Pure Luxury Kraft cardstock for the base, and used Versamark ink and a verbiage background stamp on the top.  I layered some Fiskars DP with some purple cs, in order to relate to the focal image, and upholstered the bottom of the card with it.  I really like the sort of glowing leaves in this DP, so I made sure they were visible below the focal image.  I tore some value pack black cs to give it a rough edge, and backed my image with it, but this time I attached the black to the base first, and popped the image by itself over the black with some mounting tape.  Then I added the owl, the rhinestones, and that was it.

The interesting thing on this project for me, was how hard it was to make this a Halloween card.  The owl is really stately, so pairing it with kitchy, silly stuff was not going to work.  So, I went really dark and mysterious with it instead.  I could make it a Halloween card, I suppose, but instead I am using it as a birthday card for one of my best male friends who has a Fall birthday.  I think this is a nice, masculine card.

I am in the market for a great stamp for the BACK of my cards.  I think I would like to have my name and blog site listed, and I think a bit of a crazy font would make it just about perfect for my style.  Any ideas?  Hey, and what about watermarks?  What do YOU use on your pics?

Thanks for stopping by! 
For those of you on the East coast, I hope you made it through Irene unscathed!
All Best--
Richard