PMS Monday Challenge: All Tied Up!

Today's PMS Monday Challenge is an embellishment challenge, and it was handed to us by DT member Dawn Barrett. She challenged us to ribbons on our cards. Here's my entry. Not very creative with the ribbons, but I used them nonetheless! I chose to use this cute panda bear from the Panda Hugs set. Believe it or not, I was unsure which parts of the panda were black, so I googled panda bears and this is what I found.

Cute picture, huh? While it gave me direction in coloring the panda, it also gave me the idea to create my own bamboo dp. I just stamped this bamboo-looking stamp from SU's Embrace Life in black and colored it in with a green copic marker. The panda was not colored with a black marker...have you ever used a black copic marker? It's REALLY dark, so I used W-5 and then went over that with W-7. This way you could still see the stamped parts of the panda. After coloring it, it looked too flat and it's difficult to use a blender pen on such dark colors (at least for me), so I used a technique I learned in my copic certification class. I saturated a piece of wash cloth with copic blender solution (we were given a large bottle at the class), then held it over the colored parts of the panda. The effect that's left is the pattern from the wash cloth. It leaves a fur-like pattern. Perfect for my panda! (You can see a tutorial of this technique on SCS by Beate Johns here.)

I then cut him out, layered him on my homemade dp and onto a piece of dp from PTI. I added the ribbon, of course, on a piece of white that was edged with a decorative border punch from EK Success (the ones that fold flat...ingenious!) That piece is hard to see. I then colored a Prima with the same green marker I used for the bamboo and layered another white one over it. In the center of the flower and in the corners of the card I placed green glitter dots. I struggled with a sentiment (the one that comes with the set was too big for the front), but remembered this Happy Earth Day one from PMS and stamped it then cut and embossed it with a tag die through which I tied another piece of ribbon (another chance to use it!). I thought with Earth Day coming April 22nd and with the low numbers of pandas on earth today that it was appropriate. I also added crystal effects to the panda's eyes, nose and mouth. I followed Taylor's sketch from Friday as well. Stop on over to the PMS blog and see what the other DT members have created for the challenge. We hope you will play along with us on this one! It's an easy one this week that everyone can join in on! I look forward to seeing your creations! Thanks for stopping by!
Recipe

Stamps: Panda Hugs and sentiment (PMS); Embrace Life

Paper: PTI white and dp; garden green

Ink: Memento tuxedo black

Copic Markers: G24, W-5, W-7

Accessories: Prima flowers, glitter dots, crystal effects, EK Success border punch, ticket corner punch, tag die, ribbon, copic blender solution, dimensionals