There’s something so comforting about a quiet walk through the woods—soft greenery, gentle sunlight, and the sweetest little woodland friends along the way. Today’s card captures that peaceful charm with a group of adorable critters coming together to deliver a simple but heartfelt message: Sending a Little Happiness Your Way. At the end of this blog, I have another card that I created using the same technique and products.
To create this card, you will need the following items from Kat Scrappiness:
Woodland Critters Sentiments Stamp Set
Stitched Rounded Rectangle Craft Dies
Glimmering Green Glitter Sequins
You will also need the following products:
White and black cardstock
Gel printing plate
Brayer
Ink pads in shades of green (light to dark); light blue ink pad; black ink pad
Alcohol markers or pencils
Foam Tape
Liquid Adhesive or adhesive of your choice
Foam tape
Masking paper (I used masking paper to create the fox on the tree stump but it’s not necessary)
After gathering the above, let's begin!
Step #1 – Creating your ‘stencil’
Using the Stitched Foliage Craft Dies and white cardstock, die cut the Stitched Foliage Craft Dies. Keep both the negative cardstock and the die cuts and set them aside. You will need both for this technique.
Step #2 - the Background panel
Using your gel printing plate and your green ink pads, lay some ink onto the gel plate starting with the lightest green, followed by the next two green inks.
Next, take your brayer and roll over the ink to blend the inks together or to blend any harsh lines. I left some of the harsh lines to add variation of the colors.
Next, lay your white cardstock onto the gel plate and using your hands, gently rub the back of the cardstock. Once you have it rubbed all over, gently peel the cardstock from the gel plate.
Next, lay some more ink onto the gel plate and use your brayer to blend it in with the previous inks.
Then, using the negative piece from the previous step of die cutting the Stitched Foliage Craft Dies (this is your ‘stencil’), lay that onto the gel plate. Then, take your inked up cardstock and lay that onto your stencil. Gently rub the back of the cardstock onto your stencil so that it will pick up the design. When you have rubbed the entire piece, gently remove your cardstock and the ‘stencil’.
Next, add some more ink onto the gel plate and use the brayer again to smooth out the inks. Now, take your Stitched Foliage Craft Dies cuts and randomly place them around your gel plate.
Then, take the same cardstock and lay that down onto the gel plate and again, gently rub all around the cardstock. When you remove the cardstock, you will see how the leaf pattern is appearing with the different shades of greens. You can repeat these steps if you want more leaves but I kept mine to a minimum.
Hint: Save those Stitched Foliage die cuts for a future project as they are already colored!)
Now that you have the above done, trim your cardstock to an A2 sized panel (4 ¼” by 5 ½”) using your paper trimmer. I made quite a few of these background panels so I have extra for a future use.
Step #3 – Woodland Critters
I stamped the images of the squirrel, bear, beaver, fox, tree stump and mushroom using black ink pad onto white cardstock and colored them in using alcohol markers. For the fox on the tree stump and mushroom, I used masking paper to create one image, however, this isn’t necessary. You can stamp, color, and cut them out individually and adhere them together instead.
Here is the completed fox after using the masking technique. If you like a blog post going into more detailed instructions on masking, please let us know by leaving a comment.
Step #4 - Die cutting the critters
I used the A2 Film Strip Die to die cut the squirrel straight up and down. For the bear and beaver, a turned the die so the critters are poking out from the corners. Next, I used a Kat’s Crafty Dabbers to add some light blue ink lightly around the critters.
Also, you will need to die cut the A2 Film Strip Die with black cardstock.
Step #5 – Sentiment
I chose to use the “Sending a little happiness your way!” sentiment and stamped that onto white cardstock with a black ink pad. I die cut the sentiment using one of the Stitched Rounded Rectangle Craft Dies but off centered so I can trim off the right side so it lines up with the edge of the card.
Step #6 – Putting it all together
Now that all the steps are done, let’s put it all together.
I put liquid adhesive onto the back of the black A2 Film Strip die and adhered that onto the background panel at an angle from the top left corner.
Next, I adhered each of the critters into the empty squares using liquid adhesive. I added foam tape behind the squirrel and the sentiment. I adhered the squirrel to bottom right and the sentiment above the squirrel. I then trimmed off the excess sentiment die cut. Next, I added some Glimmering Green Glitter Sequins to complete the card panel. Finally, I adhered the panel to a top folding A2 sized card base with some liquid adhesive.
And that completes the card!
Here is my second card I made using another background panel (same techniques) and the other three critters from the stamp set: owl, bunny, and hedgehog). I die cut them along with the green border using the Never Ending Oval Craft Dies.
Hint: There are some small foliage stamps that are included in both stamp sets. I used them to decorate my matching envelope. This is something that I often overlook and this is a great way to use those little stamps that coordinate with the card for that extra special touch!
Here are both cards and the matching envelope that I created using that fun background technique. This is a technique that is so versatile with so many color options or die cut images! I hope you try it using the products I used. I tried to keep the foreground to somewhat at a minimum so you can see the detail of the beautiful background panels. Those Stitched Foliage Craft Dies really added the detail of a forest that I was looking for.
I hope you enjoyed these cards and I also hope you try making a version of them yourself. We would love to see what you create using Kat Scrappiness products. If you haven’t already, please join us over at Kat Scrappiness Facebook page as well as Kat Scrappiness Insiders to see all the incredible creations! There’s also Instagram too Kat Scrappiness where you not only find inspiration but fun hops as well!
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Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting!
Crafty Bo
