Clean and Simple with Layers by Guest Amanda Wilcox

We welcome our friend Amanda Wilcox to the Ellen Hutson blog. She has designed a clean and simple project with layers.

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Hello friends! Today I have the awesome opportunity to guest design for Ellen Hutson and play with that adorable bear and all his dress up accessories again! I had a hard time choosing but thought it would be fun to add to the thank you card stash with a police bear in the city.

I started my card by choosing and stamping my images. Then I colored them all with copic markers and cut them out with the coordinating dies. That is, except for Mr. Bear. His die is solid so it’s practically impossible to line it up after you’ve stamped. So today, I have a little trick to how I stamp this guy whenever I’m creating with him.

Once upon a time, at the beginning of getting this stamp set, I cut the bear shape from a scrap of cardstock and kept the negative piece in my die packaging for future use. Whenever I stamp this image, I place the negative scrap in my MISTI. Then line the stamp up in that area, use the lid to pick up the stamp and place my blank die cut shape in the void. I ink up the stamp and stamp it down. This also works to re-stamp if you didn’t get a good impression because the space holding your bear didn’t move. It works great! The image you see on the right has been double stamped because his nose didn’t cooperate and was blotchy the first time.

With my images all taken care of, I switched over to my background where I had a fun idea to create a little cityscape. I used the Essentials By Ellen Big City die to cut a border from 2 different gray cardstocks and also black cardstock. I took a white A2 panel and used a Trinity Stamps embossed edge circle stack die to cut a window. Using this window as a guide I adhered the layers of city buildings together and a pencil to mark where I needed to trim off the excess. 

Next, I took a white card base and inked up my sky using distress oxide ink in fossilized amber and wild honey. Finally, I used liquid glue to adhere everything together.

I stamped and heat embossed a sentiment from Bear Ware Dress Up sentiments on the darker gray cardstock used in my buildings. I added foam strips to these and foam squares to my dressed up bear before popping them all in place on my card front.

For finishing touches I added black glaze pen to Bear’s eyes and glossy accents to his nose, the shield on his hat and car, and the car’s lights too.

Isn’t this such a fun card!?! I’m so happy with how it turned out and had a blast playing with this bear and all of his accessories.

If you’d like to see more of Amanda’s wonderful work, you can find her at @twiddlersnook on Instagram.

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