Valkommen - Hero Arts Street Map Background

It's very possible that I check the sale section at Simon Says Stamp with alarming frequency.  That's because they have some crazy amazing steals over there. For example, I picked up this background from Hero Arts for only 99 cents the other day!

HA makes my favorite background stamps, so picking this up at that price was a no brainer.

Because I wanted the streets to be nice and black with white dotted lines, I started with a black base, stamped with Versamark, and heat embossed in white.

I also stamped the background on some green patterned paper and white cardstock.

The green paper pieces were cut out and then pieced onto my black base and the images (trees, houses, etc) on the white cardstock were colored with Copics and then pieced on top of the green. 

I had considered just stamping twice (embossed on black) and then on white and coloring everything, but that seemed like a lot of green coloring, so I opted for the green patterned paper, but it was a little too flat, so I added some very soft shading in a couple corners on each of the rectangles. 

I wanted a 'Welcome to the Neighborhood' sentiment for this, but I looked through all of my sets and shockingly could not find one (this must be rectified), so I went with this sentiment from my Dala Horse set.

This is such a fun background with lots of possibilities!  Best 99 cents I ever spent!  (This background is no longer available at Simon (no surprise there), but you can pick it up at Ellen or Hero Arts.)