Eye to the Telescope

There's a simple little technique that I love to haul out of my Wow-Factor bag of tricks. When I learned it, it was called telescoping. I since also heard it referred to as The Magnifying Glass Technique. That takes too long to say, so I'm sticking with telescoping.

The idea of telescoping is to use a somewhat bland background and then use a cut out and framed piece for just part of it to draw in the eye. In the example above, I chose kraft cardstock for the basic image, a stamp from the Artistic Outpost set Bluebird. I then stamped the image again, this time using black StazOn Ink against white cardstock. I decided which part of it I wanted to color in and then cut out that section using a circle punch. I colored the bird and branch using Distress Inks and a Dove Blender pen (my favorite way of coloring in images, by the way).

I chose a matching blue color to frame in the "telescope shot" and cut that out using a slightly larger punch. My punches for this were 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circles. From there it's just a matter of gluing things together and carefully matching the cut out design with the background. I stamped the card base using the To Kill a Mockingbird quote stamp from the same Artistic Outpost set. Then I distressed it a little using a sponge and ink. I tied a bit of twine into a bow and glued that on, and I was done.

Telescoping is a great way to add color to an image without having to color in the entire image. And you don't have to use a punch as you'll see in the following example.

For this one I used Blockheads' Flower Vignette stamp. I stamped the image twice on white cardstock. I entirely cut out one of these. With the other, using my thumbs and index fingers to form a rough square, I "scoped" out which part I thought would be prettiest to color in. I did that, again using  Distress Inks and a Dove Blender pen. Then I cut a 1 1/4" square out of the colored part, as well as a 1 3/8" square of black.

I lined everything up, glued it together, layered it against black cardstock, and added a row of tiny brads at the bottom just for a bit of bling.

For my third and final example, I used Blockheads' Painted Butterfly set and Stargazer set. I stamped the butterfly on white cardstock, and again on a scrap of white cardstock. Then I masked off the main butterfly image and stamped around it in Mustard Seed Distress Ink with some of the Stargazer stamps. I love juxtaposing soft, natural/nature items against sort of industrial looking designs. Anyway, you know the rest... colored in the butterfly wing then punched it, punched a larger circle of yellow cardstock, matched it up, glued it, and added a swirly black paperclip and some gingham ribbon.

Try this technique. It's really a lot of fun and it's a good way of training your eye toward where and how to place color. It's also a great time saver if you're like me... always going for big images that you don't always want to spend time coloring in.