Brutus & Friends!

Brutus & Friends — not only are they cute — they are working hard for a great cause. When I first saw the Chuck Carson Collection: Brutus & Friends Stamp Set — I immediately knew what I wanted to create with it. Brutus and Benson have personal rescue stories to tell and I share my life with three, now very senior, rescues — two Carin terriers and one Brittany Spaniel who have their stories! Needless to say, we are always talking rescue to anyone who will listen!

For this card, I started by creating the sentiment on my Silhouette in a brush font sized for an A2 card (4.25 inches by 5.5 inches). I offset the sentiment and cut it from white cardstock. I also cut a 1 1/2” wide scallop edged strip from a red and white gingham pattern that I pulled from a planner sticker series I sell on trlplansandprints, my Etsy shop. (ECV-0144 is the number for the this series - just in case you want to take a little look-see!) The pattern was printed on heavy cardstock before cutting.

Stamping!! As you may have figured out by now, I love tiny things. What I love more is putting lots of little things together to make a bigger thing — so it tickled me to see all the “accessories” that are included in this set. I stamped up a storm using Brutus Monroe Detail Ink in Raven on white cardstock. The tiniest of images came out as clear as the larger ones. I was sure to clean my stamps and blocks with Squeaky Clean — once they were wiped down I set them aside to dry before putting them away, taking special care that the tiniest ones didn’t get lost. (Thank goodness for zip-type plastic bags!)

There was a moment of wishing that I had color pens to play with on these stamps, primarily because the detail seemed so minimal. I am still in the process of deciding what brand I want so there aren’t any in my small stamping arsenal…yet! I relied on my trusty colored pencils and did all the little things first, using just one color on each. I put off coloring the pups and the house for a bit — weird I know — but I didn’t think I had the coloring skill to get them right with just a few pencils. I finally jumped in with Benson, the fluffy one. I gave him a base layer of winter white and then added a bit of gray for his tipping. Using the white pencil I went back over the gray and “blended” the edges into the white. I must say that the little guy looks really cute — just two pencils and I got cute! For Brutus, I laid down a golden brown base followed with copper brown for a bit of shading and then filled in the min pin markings with black. Both pups got little pops of white paint pen in their eyes and on their button noses. Three colors on the house — and I was done.

To put it all together i started with two cardstock card backs. Using Premium Chalk Ink in Sea and an old-school triangular makeup sponge, I patted on a very light, and definitely not even, layer of color. I taped the gingham strip, placing it so the house would extend off the top and bottom edges. I used foam tape to secure the house and then flat tape for the first part of the sentiment. Next I scattered all of the tiny goodies and attached them with flat tape. There are digital cut files for this stamp set; but I fussy cut all of the images and will definitely use the digi cuts next time around. For the inside part of the card, I positioned the sentiment and both pups using flat tape. Then, with Detail Ink, I stamped all the tiny paws, swirls and hearts randomly on both pieces. I taped the card backs to a finished blank card and presto — a cute card with a great message.

Chuck Carson is a genius — bringing personality to line drawings is a talent that I so admire. Once again, his skill makes my coloring attempts look fairly decent! Thanks for that, Chuck and Brutus Monroe for bringing him to all of us out here in Stampland! 

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