Papertrey Ink Make It Monday

I couldn't resist taking part in a new-to-me challenge over at Papertrey Ink called "Make It Monday."  This week, the Make It Monday challenge is to hand draw a line frame as a border on your card.  I hope this counts, since I did in fact start out with a line frame - two, in fact, one around the entire periphery and one around the sentiment.  But then, it seemed to need a bit of whimsy.... so I doodled around the line frame.  And then I colored in some of the loops with Copics... and gave some others some polka dots.....  Seriously fun. ;)

A little tip I discovered for doing this type of doodling... actually, a couple of tips:  Doodling, by its very nature, is not perfect, so don't try to be perfect! It is much more appealing if it's got some character to it.  That being said.... so that you don't end up with a ginormous loop at your corner, or two teensy loops scrunched in at the end of your line... start out by making the little doodled loops at each corner first, on all sides (also at the ends of your lines, if the lines are broken up by your images).  Then start doodling loops along your line to fill in between the corners.  After you get about 2/3s to 3/4 of the way through, go to the other end of your line and make loops (in the opposite direction) until you meet up with the ones you have done.  Why?  Because then, if you have one loop that is notably larger or smaller than the rest, it looks like you *meant* to do it, since it is in the middle.  Follow? (Hmmm, I'm probably being as clear as mud..... should have taken pictures along the way... sorry!)

Anyway, the details..... the little girl image is from Paper Whimsy, cut out and distress inked.  The houses and wings are cut from Papertrey Ink's Love Lives Here Collection dies (one house from corrugated paper), and the house and sentiment stamps are from the Love Lives Here stamp set.  I started out by cutting out everything, stamping and distressing the diecuts, and arranging them on the card to get an idea of placement.  I then laid out my frame using the technique in Nicole's video.  I masked out the framed area, added Distress Inks in Antique Linen and Tattered Rose, then stamped a Text Style stamp in Tattered Rose as a background.  After doodling my frame, I added the little road using Copics, then glued down my elements.  A couple of little details... I added some vintage glass glitter behind the heart in the middle house, and popped up the house.  I also went in and "shaded" my doodles and the sentiment frame with a warm gray Copic marker (W2, I think) to give it all a bit of dimension.   


I know Papertrey is kinda known for it's clean and simple approach.... but as you can see, you can certainly take it all shabby chic and vintage.  Thanks for stopping by - I hope you can give this technique a try. :)