OHC 76 - Pear

Today's card is another entry in my One Hundred Cards challenge (read about it here). When I pulled out the "pear" theme, I knew just the perfect stamp set to use -- Avery Elle's Berry Good. This set features some lovely images of fruit that are perfect for practicing your coloring, as well as some great sentiments. I especially love the whimsical font in the sentiments, and I can really see myself reaching for them often.

For this card, I decided to use my Copics and practice coloring some semi-realistic textures and shading. I stamped out two pears onto some Copic marker paper in black hybrid ink. I used a variety of Y, G and YG markers for the pear body, then added a few dots of soft orange. After I finished coloring, I carefully cut the pears out, leaving a small white border.

I wanted the pears to be the main focus of the card, so I kept the rest of the card super simple. I die-cut a piece of patterned paper into a stitched rectangle. I stamped the sentiment onto some white cardstock and die-cut it with a stitched circle die.

I wrapped a piece of green grosgrain ribbon around the top of the patterned paper and adhered the sentiment over it. I adhered that panel to a chartreuse top-folding A2 card base (4¼x5½"), then added the pears on foam squares.

BUDGET TIP: Look for stamp sets that combine something unique with something simple and practical. For example, Berry Good set that I used in today's card has unique, quirky-styled sentiments and simply-drawn fruit. The fruit can be stamped and colored in many ways -- Copics, pencils, watercolor, even paper-piecing.