Stenciling a Giraffe

The blue and yellow color scheme of THIS layout (shared last week) inspired me to create a card for my niece whose little one is due next month. Since she is decorating the nursery in a safari animal theme, I thought a little giraffe would make a cute card addition. These elegant creatures from a recent trip to the zoo were also an inspiration:

 

After finding images for both the giraffe silhouette and giraffe spots, I was able to cut my base shape and create a stencil with my digital cutter. The wavy lines on the bottom stencil (also used on my card) were cut by hand. As you can see, I also cut out a few ducks in case the giraffe didn't work out  as planned!

 

Below is a little practice stenciling, using a sponge dauber and pigment ink in Coffee Bean. I wanted to be sure it looked OK on the textured cardstock before proceeding.

 It worked well!

Although the stencil didn't cover the entire giraffe, it was easy to move it around, touching up the legs and head. I finished him off by inking the edges and adding facial details. He came out rather cute!

Background was pieced using scraps of patterned papers from my June Scraptastic kit, Carry On. Not much longer and my parents will be welcoming their first great grandchild!