A little birdie told me..

 

Yes you few faithful readers…I have two posts today. Please make sure you keep scrolling down when you are done with this one :)

I joined an ATC swap over at the Stamp Shack with the image sight unseen. The hostess, Chris aka mydogstinks, picked the image and stamped it for us. I had no idea what to expect and never expected a hippo!

So I stared at the image for a day  and wondered just what I would do with it. I knew that I would color the image with Copics but after that…..

Well my brayer was sitting on my table from Savannah and the Zindorf class. So I thought, you need to use it. I used all Adirondack inks on the ATC. I began by brayering I think it’s called Stonewashed (I bought it so long ago it was Name this color) on the top of the ATC. Next I added Sail Boat Blue. Here is what they looked like -

So far so good. I brayered Willow on the bottom third of the card. 

Now time to sponge. I lightly sponged Sandal on top of the Willow and Denim on the top edge of the ATC for shadows. I stamped seagrass from the GinaK set Best fishes with Lettuce ink and then swiped my Melon atyou Spica pen for highlights.

The sentiment was added in black. I cut out the hippo and yes I cut off the tail. I added a piece of knotted black hemp to create my own tail. I wanted to add a small bow to the tail, but it seemed too big for the ATC so I opted for just a knot. I put the image on a foam square and added Rain dots and Dew drops. Here are the final cards:

Not too shabby especially since I had not practiced with my brayer for over two months.