OWH - ODBD Challenge for February

Every month Our Daily Bread Designs hosts a challenge for Operation Write Home.  If they get 50 or more cards linked up to the challenge by the end of that month, they will sponsor the shipping of two boxes of cards for our deployed heroes.  Thanks to ODBD for providing a fun way to help get cards mailed to our troops!

The theme for this month is "animals", which worked out very well for me.  Yesterday I had started working on a card with an idea in mind.  Twenty four hours later, this creation had taken on a life of it's own:

About the only thing that stayed constant was using OWH sketch #125 as my inspiration.  I won't bore you with the whole long story, but I will tell you that I ended up stamping the giraffe (from Gina K Designs) on to a piece of Ranger's Specialty Stamping paper using Archival ink.   I then masked off the image, as well as the "horizon" line, and sponged on Distress inks to create the background.  I did the spritz and flick trick that I learned from Tim Holtz to create some interest before stamping the tree and grasses (all Gina K). The giraffe was colored in using Distress markers, both directly to paper, and by scribbling onto a pallet and using a water brush to blend.

For the strip on the left side, I just sponged on the Distress ink, Then I created a mask with the four squares (which came from a Club Scrap stencil) and stamped the star burst image (from Inkadinkado).  Then using the same stencil I traced the squares onto the background using a Faber-Castel pen.

Other supplies I used are:
**paper from Gina K, Club Scrap
**sentiment stamp from Gina K, stamped with Archival ink and heat embossed with Ranger Antiquities embossing powder
**ribbon from Club Scrap, altered with Copic Marker
**I am not sure what manufacturer the nail heads are from, but I had found them at JoAnns a while ago.

I didn't originally intend to build a scene on this card.  In fact, this is the first time that I have attempted that technique.  How do you think I did?

Thanks for stopping by!