Fabulous Flamingo PP357

There's no other title to give today's post because the flamingo set I used for my card really is, well... fabulous!  And, so is the tropical color combination Sandy is hosting for us this week at The Paper Players:

 I knew right away that I would ink up the new-to-me Fabulous Flamingo set.  I can't live in Florida and not own this set, right?!  Advance apologies to Sandy....as I sat down to make my card I discovered that my Pear Pizzazz ink pad has dried up!  It's the old-style felt ones and I had no ink refills for it.  So, I substituted the current in-color Lemon Lime Twist which pairs equally as well with Bermuda Bay and Calypso Coral.  I'm also happy to share today's card with my dear friends on our sister site, Freshly Made Sketches as they celebrate sketch #300!  Congratulations, gals that is a huge milestone.  You'll notice that I flipped the sketch to better suit the orientation of the flamingo.  Here's the awesome sketch and my card:

This card is deceptively simple.  Deceptively because although it has only two layers, there are some details that take a bit of explaining.  In order to match the sketch, I needed a short and narrow panel for the flamingo.  Because the image is wider than I wanted, I stamped him on a piece of thick whisper white cardstock and trimmed the sides leaving just a bit of the image hanging off the edge.  To do this, use a rotary cuter and cut down each side just to the image.  Then use small scissors to fussy-cut around the edge you want hanging off.  This might help:

This image is four stamps! There is the solid base of the bird's body, the shadow which highlights the neck, lower body and legs.  These were both stamped in Calypso Coral with the solid body image stamped off once.  The line art on the body and legs are two separate stamps.  All these stamps give a lot of flexibility with how you want your flamingo to look.  TIP: I found the best results stamping the highlight image w/legs FIRST.  Using this one first makes sure that your flamingo ends up standing straight and tall instead of leaning forward.  That's not such a fabulous look, lol!

Lately, I've been making simple cards with less layers and I didn't want to use another layer of paper under the panel with the flamingo.  I decided to mask off an area that would mimic a layer of paper and stamp directly on my card base instead.

That's all for the tricky parts---oh, the Bermuda Bay "enamel dots" aren't  really Bermuda Bay.  I didn't have any in that color but I did have a aqua colored Sharpie marker which did wonders for changing the color of my enamel dots!

 Have to show you a close up of the flamingo as her plumage is bedazzled with Wink of Stella.

And, lastly a peek at the inside with some stamping in the corner.  Just shows how pretty these three colors look together.  Whew, and that's it!  I hope you liked today's card.  Be sure to check out the rest of my teammies with their lovely creations at The Paper Players!  Also, pop over to Freshly Made Sketches and wish the team there a Happy 300th!

The Paper Players Design Team 

Claire Broadwater

 Jaydee

Joanne James

Laurie Schmidt

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy 

Sandy Mathis 

Deanne 

Annie Abrahamson 

Jan Clothier