Sunset Technique

Today I'm writing about a really easy and pretty technique that you can create with just an ink pad and a sponge. Super easy and gives your cards a little more color pop.

For this first card I used one sponge and three different ink colors (Early Espresso, Daffodil Delight, and Marina Mist). I stamped my first zebra on the small, white, paper square. You will also need a second zebra stamped on a white piece of scrap that you will cut out for the top "clean zebra" layer.
Use the sponge and dab it on the ink pad to color and blend the background to your liking on the larger white square with zebra number one on it. (I find that making it a bit darker on the edges really helps it to pop and stand out against the plain white background). Once you've reached a happy place with your background, you can carefully cut out zebra number two  and adhere him (or her) directly on top of your first (and now multicolored) image. The zebra is from the Zoo Review set, and it one of my absolute favorite sets of all time, ever. Once, I attempted to hybridize the giraffe and zebra stamps form this set to create an okapi. It did not work out well.  The thank you greeting is from Sassy Salutations set, which has other greetings in that same funky script font.

 These three cards are basically the same, but I backed them with an orange frame to give them a little more life. And I used a colored pencil to highlight the grasses. I also incorporated the Pumpkin Pie ink pad (yum) into the color scheme, which adds another layer of warm, sunshiny, goodness.

You can use this technique with a lot of other sets, but I really love it with Zoo Review. It's very Lion King. The animal images are so pretty in just black and white and using the sponge sunsets brings them to life a little more while still looking natural. As always, thanks for reading! Enjoy!