Darkroom Door Sponsor Spotlight #1

Hello and Welcome to our first Sponsor Spotlight of this new challenge month of February.  We are very happy and honored to have- 

-as our Sew and Sew Challenge Sponsor this month!  Darkroom Door is generously awarding one of our randomly chosen Sew and Sew Challenge participants with a Darkroom Door Rubber Stamp Set ($31.95 AUD value)!  The Sew and Sew Challenge is open until February 28th--plenty of time to bring your sewing related creations over.....

 

Now, without further ado, OCC DT Member-Extraordinaire Candice (aka Tincan Crafter) is here to showcase some amazing creations she made with one of Darkroom Door's fabulous Rubber Stamp Sets--

 

I have had a fascination with Japan and Asia since I was a little child.  In my twenties I was fortunate enough to spend about 7 years over in Japan in Nagasaki and Shiga.  So when Darkroom Door generously sponsored me with the awesome Kimono Vol. 2 Stamp Set - I was thrilled and decided to draw on that experience to do these.

The Collection as shown above, consists of two Kimono clad ladies, the "Kanji" for Love, a sakura laden tree branch, a fan and three "Mon" (a crest typically signifying a family clan).  I decided to play around with every element in the collection to create a set of 4 multi-purpose cards.

Here below, are the 4 cards with a little explanation of what I used from the collection--

 Kimono First Lady 

The focal point of this card is the lovely Kimono adorned lady who is looking behind her.  I stamped her onto card stock and coloured her in with ink.  I stamped the Kanji for Love onto a wood tile and heat embossed it.  I layered the image onto various mats of washi paper, added a few brads and some twine to finish it off.

Fan Box

I stamped the fan from the collection in three different shades of Archival Ink onto Flower Print Origami Paper and fussy-cut them out.  I used gold ink to create contrast along the edges of the fan.  I used a genuine piece of washi fabric to mat the fans in a vertical 3 pattern.  I drew in some branches and punched out tiny sakura flowers out of the same origami paper to adorn what I intended to look like a sakura tree branch. The card is a window box card - the idea was that it looked like the shrine corner in Japanese Houses.

Sakura Lanterns

Using the Sakura branch stamp and two of the "mon" stamps - I came up with a lantern type card.

I cut out a big circle from silk print cardstock, stamped the Sakura Branch onto it.  I then coloured in the image with an assortment of Sakura Gel and Glaze pens.  To make the base of the lantern - I cut out two rectangles - rounded off the edges and used Walnut stain distress Ink to colour it.  For the smaller lanterns - I die cut round tabs from the Cricut line of dies.  I stamped on two of the "mon" images.  

Leafy Kimono and Lanterns

I used all the "mon" stamps and the Love Kanji on the square lanterns.  I made those by die-cutting rectangles, rounding off the corners and running the big rectangle through a crimper.  I also stamped the Lady in the Leafy Kimono and coloured her in with Sakura gel and glaze pens.  I cut a window out of some cardstock and embossed that with wood grain design.  I glued on some Washi paper on the reverse side to create the effect of the lady entering through a washi door.

I hope Darkroom Door will be happy with what I have envisioned and created with this beautiful collection of stamps

I am having serious problems with internet connectivity right now so I am unfortunately unable to show you a photo-play-by-play on how I created each card.  However I do hope that you have enjoyed these cards and that you will head over to Darkroom Door and pick up this awesome collection as well as see what other amazing collections they have.

Thanks for stopping by to have a look at these.  Please leave me a comment if you would like better details or explanations of anything that you would like to know more about, in the event that you wish to recreate it.

Happy Crafting everyone!

Candice

(aka - Tincan Crafter)

 

WOW, Candice!!  You've truly brought your experience and knowledge of Japan to life in this Outstanding set of cards!  I know, that not only will Darkroom Door love these creations, so will our readers--Each card more is beautiful and original than the last. 

 

Thank you for joining us today, for our first Darkroom Door Sponsor Spotlight of the month.  We'll have another Spotlight on the 18th, so come back then and see another Awesome OCC DT creation using Darkroom Door images.