Horsey Birthday

My fourth child turns 13 on Saturday and her daddy will be taking her, her little sister and a friend trail riding! She's so excited!

Since she's going to be having a horsey birthday I thought I'd do a horsey birthday card for her.

I stamped the PSX horse stamp on watercolor paper with Versafine Onyx Black ink and colored it with SU markers and a water brush and ink pad. Sometimes you can get a nice water-colored look by touching the water brush tip to the marker itself. I did that to get the lighter green grass by using the Old Olive marker with the water brush. Then I went in with the Always Artichoke marker (without the water brush) while the paper was still wet to get the shadows.

The horses started out with the lightest marker I could find: Creamy Caramel. I added layer upon layer of CC to the image until I got it as dark as I could. Then I used the water brush and the Close to Cocoa ink pad to give the darker places a bit more color, but not too much. I used the Close to Cocoa marker for the manes and tails.

For the "sky" I used a sponge dauber very lightly inked with Bashful Blue ink and gingerly went over the sky area. It might not even be visible in this pic. It's very lightly done.

The designer papers I used are from the Memory Box Brandywine (the top one) and Poppyfinch (the bottom one) collections.

I used the Cuttlebug Forest Branches embossing folder on the top dp. It didn't pop out as much because, like an idiot, I glued several layers together beforehand and had to create a different "sandwich" to run it through the Cuttlebug with. I used the Swiss Dots folder on the lower piece.

The rest is pretty much self-explanatory. TFL and have a lovely evening!

Stamps: PSX horse (G-1876), Happy Birthday stamp by Savvy Stamps

CS: Black, Memory Box Brandywine and Poppyfinch dps, watercolor paper

Inks: Versafine Onyx Black, Close to Cocoa, Bashful Blue

SU Markers: Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, Always Artichoke

Other: Cuttlebug Forest Branches and Swiss Dots embossing folders, Fiskars Diamond border punch, Labels 3 Nestabilities, water brush, sponge dauber, 3D-Dots, black gingham ribbon, Bo Bunny Sadie icandy brads, Stamp-a-ma-jig, ticket corner punch, Inkssentials opaque white pen (for horse blazes)