Technique Class- Making skies

Hi everyone! I just wanted to share some projects I have been working on. On Monday night my Technique Class learned how to make skies with the Scallop Circle punch. This is a fun, quick, and easy way to make skies. You can make pretty blue skies as shown in the Hot Air Balloon card above or you can add a bit more color to make dramatic skies that reflect mood as you will see in the samples below. For our first card in class, we made the Hot Air Balloon with a Sweet Treat cup and the Sweet Centers stamp set that is available in the Holiday Mini. Pink M&M's- yum!!

For our second card, we used the 'Wandering Words' stamp set, also in the Holiday Mini. We stepped it up a bit to make the sky a little more colorful by adding some Barely Banana Classic ink highlights. We made faux grosgrain ribbon with the crimper.

I love to finish off the inside of my cards. I don't think a card is really complete unless the inside is all nice and pretty too :D. For the inside of our card, we inked the edges of the Whisper White card stock with Bashful Blue Classic ink. We punched out the tag shapes from Bashful Blue and Whisper White and inked around the edges of the Whisper White tag with Barely Banana Classic ink. Layered the two tags together and added a heart from the Heart to Heart punch. Viola!
I had some samples made up to show my class members some other sky color combos. On the Lovely As a Tree card below I used Bashful Blue, then added a touch of Apricot Appeal and finished off with Regal Rose. What you will want to remember is to add ink lightly and add more as you need it.
My next sample has an Autumn evening mood to it. For this sky I used Barely Banana, Apricot Appeal, and a very, very, very light touch of Only Orange.
Would you like to know how to make a sky like these :D ? It's easy peasy! Get a scrap of Whisper White card stock and the Scallop Circle punch. Punch out one Scallop Circle. You will use the punched out shape as a mask. Start at the bottom and work your way up- very important to start from the bottom ;o). Lay your Scallop Circle shape on top of your Whisper White card stock where you want your bottom clouds to start. Take a sponge dauber, dab the tip of the sponge dauber into Bashful Blue ink (or whatever color you choose) and with a circular motion, very lightly sponge the ink onto the Whisper White card stock and over the edges of the Scallop Circle mask. You can go all the way around the Scallop Circle, but you will get a more realistic sky if you only go around part of the circle. Lift up the Scallop Circle, place down on your card stock in another area- somewhere near the first cloud shape that you did. Alternating the height of the placement of your mask also helps to make a more realistic sky. Repeat inking the sky using the Scallop Circle as a mask and work your way up to the top of your card stock. Once you are happy with your Bashful Blue and white cloudy sky, you can add a little more color. You will want to use your other colors 'lightly'. You can always 'add' more ink to make it darker if you want. I generally start adding my other color to the undersides of my clouds to start with. You will want to try to stay as much as possible on the white part of the underside of your clouds so you don't get any funky colors going. Although, sometimes the funky colors make dramatic skies too ;o). After you ink the undersides of your clouds, you can add a little color to the top sides of the clouds as in my Lovely As a Tree sample above. You will not want to completely cover up the white edges of your clouds. So there you have it! Wasn't that easy?