Camping themed cards

I ordered the Campology stamp set basically to make up my figures for this quarter. I didn't really want it. It's not the sort of stamp set I would go for, but I did really like the trees, so I am glad I did buy it. 

I have had hours of fun playing with this set over the last few days.

The card above is Hubby's birthday card for next week. Maybe it will remind him of a camp site in Suffolk we stayed on, more than 40 years ago. It was called the Moon and Sixpence. I loved that name, which is probably why I remembered it. I also recall it cost more than sixpence to camp there.  That's enough of my memories, time to tell you about todays cards.

 The card above is nothing like what I had in my mind when I started it. I had originally stamped the lantern on the scene, but I didn't like it, so I started messing around with aperture card fronts and managed to save a portion of the card.

 However  the handle of the lantern was showing through the aperture, which was not a good look. 

After a little thought on how to get round this, I decided to stamp and colour the lantern on a separate  piece of card. I then cut it out, cutting off the handle. 

 I inked up the handle part of the lantern stamp only, and using the stamp a majig, I matched up the handle on the stamp with the piece of handle showing through the aperture and stamped the handle on the front panel. I then stuck the body of the lantern on the front matching it up with the handle.

To create this one I stamped the tent twice and masked each one off as I stamped them. Then blended  a band of yellow ink through the centre, above the yellow, I blended in some peachy ink, followed by pink ink and finally purple. 

I then stamped the trees over the top and sponged in the foreground and added the sentiment.

I have had a few questions about how I coloured the tents. 

Here's how I do it...

 I coloured the tent with alcohol markers, starting with a pale yellow, draw a circle and colour it in. 

 Add a circle of a golden yellow around the pale yellow, then  draw an orange  circle and fill the corners. Blend all the colours together with the lightest coloured marker.  If you want a little more shading  add  a little brown in darker areas and blend all the colours together with the lighter coloured marker. Don't blend too much or you will blend out all the shading.

  I wanted the trees to have a bit more substance,  so  I dabbed dots of dark green ink on the foliage areas and coloured in the trunks. Lastly, I dotted stars in the sky with a white Posca pen.

The card above was inspired by Michelle Zindorf, I saw her version and decided I wanted to have a go at reproducing it myself.  I would never have thought of using greens in the sky, but it works.

I am happy with the result, it's quite close to the original,  but not exactly the same.  I think Michelle's card is nicer.

My third card is a 3x 7 inch card.  I adapted the image to fit the slimline card.

I swapped out the lantern for the coffee pot and mug. I cut out the pot and mug and adhered them in the foreground using dimensionals.

 My final card, which was actually one of my first attempts with this set. I almost abandoned it as I thought the foreground was too dark, then I decided to try painting a path through the foreground  with a paint brush, after water waiting a few seconds for the water to do it's stuff, I dabbing off the water with kitchen towel. The water lifted just enough ink to create a moonlit path through the darkness. So I managed to save yet another piece of work that was heading for the bin. I found some tiny crystal stars in my sparkles drawer and used three on this card.