Pawsitively Pets at Paper Issues

Thank you for stopping by to check out Pawsitively Pets at Paper Issues. For anyone that knows me, you know we do not have pets! However, we have many family and friends who give us plenty of animal loving time so we aren't left out!  For this challenge, I stuck with our giraffe pictures from the Naples, FL Zoo.  We loved watching the kids feed the giraffes their lettuce!

For this challenge, you are to use something you've been hoarding in your stash, and something new to you!  I used the new Amy Tangerine Oh Happy Life collection for the paper elements and the coordinating stamp to do an embossing technique with a gold watercolor wash.  This enabled me to create my own patterned paper to mimic the look of giraffe spots.

After stamping and embossing the giraffes on the white cardstock, I flipped over the cardstock and added gesso in the area of the stamped giraffes.  *Important this is added on the backside of the paper not over the top of your stamped images! This helps to create a barrier for the paper and decreases the warping of the paper.  Next, was adding the watercoloring:  

I love how the water beads up over the embossed image giving the giraffe spots!  I stitched down the bold chevron/angled paper next.

I also added the foam Thickers, ephemera, stickers, and even the packaging flap for the sticker booklet became a layer for my picture.  The "Remember" is from an Amy Tangerine Better Together transparency that I finally cut into and used!  Also, the roller stamp is the cutest with the rows of hearts!

I hope you'll check out the Paper Issues blog post and play along at Paper Issues Fans and Friends on Facebook.  We would love to see your pet or animal inspired layouts mixed with the challenge details!

If you want to try a project using Amy Tangerine's new collection Oh Happy Life, Cassie has it in the Paper Issues store.  You can get it for 20% off using my code: Stacie