Kit: The Mage Wars

Over at the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog, this week's past challenge, Read All About It!, has been to make something inspired by books or writing.

Until someone starts hosting a "Bookmarks by Newbie Crafters" challenge, this is the best fit for my stuff there is.

I pulled together this kit to start from:

I know, I know, it looks a lot more like three kits than one. But for these bookmarks I'm drawing my inspiration from a trilogy, so I have a mini-kit for each book, with colors from the book's cover:

These three books are known as the Mage Wars trilogy, by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon. The cover art for all three books is by Jody Lee, whose work is beautiful. Also, the books that Jody Lee illustrates the covers for are almost always books I enjoy. In this case, I do judge books by their covers -- if it's one of her covers, that's as good as any written recommendation.

I also pulled out a few things to try to tie the three bookmarks together visually, rather than inspired-by-series-ly. I don't know that I would normally have pulled out the Shimmer Spritz, but The Artistic Stamper's challenge this month is Splatters and Speckles. I've not tried the splatter-paint-with-mist technique and this seems like a good time -- and then the technique as well as the colors can tie the bookmarks together.

And of course Lawn Fawn's adorable griffin stamp will be a pretty obvious tie-together element as well. I tried to put it on the lens cover to help it show up, but it's pretty unrecognizable in this picture, which is why I mention it. It's just a little cuter and happier than the gryphons on the covers, but hey, griffin stamps aren't a dime a dozen. Actually, fantasy stamps that don't involve fairies or princesses seem pretty rare. Why is that?

I'm looking forward to working these up. I think I'll do the same kind of background for The White Gryphon that I did for the Rainbow Cupcakes bookmark and the unicorn Bookmarks Ever After one, putting pigment ink down and smudging it together.

Supplies: