The titles, the hippo, the bird and ewes all come from the Cricut Birthday Bash cartridge. The circle is from George and Basic Shapes, but any circle will do. The blue mats are cut 4.25" x 6.25" and the cream is a stand in for a 4" x 6" photograph. The edges of the blue mats are distressed with a pair of open scissors (used like a potato peeler). The pattern papers are from Sassafas Bungle Jungle (lovvvvve this). Everything except the title shadows and the mats were outlined with an ultrafine black pen.
All the title shadows were cut out of some beige textured DCWV, and they were all kiss-cut so it would lessen the time I needed to spend distressing all the edges with a pair of scissors : D. I felt using the same cardstock as the base for all the animals kept the same tone, and I just used Distress Inks to get the different colors.
I glued the letters before I did a little extra distressing and then outlined each one with a fine line black pen. The musical notes were a background I considered making, but decided against it for now (something I might use later though lol). Painters tape was very handy for keeping the letters together to keep the pattern right: the "o" in hippo is different than the "o" in two.
I used the Distress Ink painting technique Tim Holtz (gotta include him in the post right?) demonstrates on his blog. Smudge the ink on a nonstick mat, spritz with Mini-Mister filled with water, use paint brush to apply to cardstock.
