Santa Flying over Woods and Snowy Monoprint

Our hot weather has ended and I actually have socks and a sweater on today so posting Christmas cards seems quite appropriate!

First up for My Time to Craft Christmas "Woods" (a grove of trees, a forest, etc.), I have Santa flying over a grove of evergreens.  It's also for Rudolph Days (anything Christmas) and Stamping Sensations "Christmas in July".

I brayered the background on coated cs, using a mask for the moon and two shades of blue Distress ink. I stamped the trees and sentiment while the background was in my MISTI to make sure I got a good impression and to avoid smudging. Then added a die cut Santa and sleigh, and a black border.

Next up, Jingle Belles want to see snow.

For my snowy background, I used a technique I learned from this Jennifer Maguire video.  I blended a couple of shades of blue Distress inks on a piece of white cs, then stamped the snowflake background in Versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I spritzed it generously with a clear shimmer spray and then placed a second piece of plain white cs on top of it and ran it through my Big Shot.  The clear embossing creates a resist and only the surrounding ink transfers to the second piece of cs as the Big Shot applies pressure.  It's that second piece that I've used as my background for this card.

I allowed the lovely soft background to take centre stage on the card.  I bordered it with a blue glitter cs and die cut the sentiment out of the same glitter cs (and also out of white cs that I slightly offset to give a bit of white showing behind the blue glitter).

 

 

   

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Impression Obsession tree line, Make an Impression sentiment
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne, Distress Speckled Egg and Faded Jeans
Paper - coated cs, white and black c
Size - A2
Accessories - Frantic Stamper Santa's Sleigh die

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - unknown snowflake background stamp
Ink - various blue Distress inks, Versamark
Paper - white cs, blue glitter cs
Size - A2
Accessories - SSS Snowy Greetings die, clear embossing powder, clear shimmer spray

Deer and Music Collage

This post is a follow up from yesterday's post where I used the background created by the first step of Jennifer McGuire's distress monoprint technique.  See this video for detailed instructions.  My first card below uses the second step.  It created another lovely background but unfortunately I shouldn't have stamped on top of it - it would have been far better to put a die cut on top.

Here's yesterday's card to show the results of step one where you heat emboss a background over the sponged Distress inks:

For step two (which creates a second background), I spritzed the first background with water, laid another piece of mixed media cs on top of it and ran it through the die cutting machine just with the pressure plates.  This transfers the colour and the pattern of the background stamp.  If you look closely at today's card, you can see the pattern.  The colours come out paler but still make a very nice background.  Because the second background doesn't have any actual heat embossing on it, I assumed I'd be able to stamp on it with no problem but I think what happened was that the lines of the embossing pressed into the second background and therefore the ink from my stamping doesn't fill in those lines.  So the reindeer and the tree have a design on them!  

I decided to use it anyway.  I trimmed it down, bordered it with white glitter cs, and added a blue gemstone to the centre of the snowflake.

I prefer the results I get from this stamp when when I stamp it on plain cs so I did a second card for this post to show you how nice the stamp is:

 

 

It makes for a great quick card - simple stamping, addition of a sentiment, bordered in red glitter cs, and embellished with a single red gemstone in the centre of the snowflake.

 

I'm linking it up with:

 

Do All Creative challenge "Animals and Christmas"

 

NBUS Challenge - Never Before Used Stuff (I'd never used the reindeer / music collage stamp)

 

Supplies:
Stamps - Woodware Musical Deer, PTI sentiment
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne - both cards, various blue Distress inks - card 1
Paper - white and red glitter cs, white cs, mixed media cs
Size - A2
Accessories - gems, clear embossing powder

Blue, Red, and White for Christmas

52 Christmas Card Throwdown has a colour challenge - use blue, red, and white only.  So I made these cards:

 

The background is done using Jennifer McGuire's distress monoprint technique.  See this video for detailed instructions.  On this card I used the background created by the first step of the technique.  I sponged a piece of mixed media cs with various blue Distress ink and then stamped my swirly snowflake background stamp over it with Versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  This intensifies the colour underneath it.  For a touch of shimmer, I randomly sprayed some pearlized spray over it.

My resulting piece of background was just enough to make two cards using the same die.  The die cuts out the frame, tree, and birds in one go.  I kept the tree / frame section white, and smooshed the birds in a couple of shades of red Distress inks.  I smooshed a scrap of white cs in the same red inks and die cut the sentiments from that.  I glued everything on the background and then popped the panel up on fun foam on the card base to give some dimension.

52 Christmas Card Throwdown 

 

Supplies:
Stamps - unknown snowflake background stamp
Ink - various blue and red Distress inks, Versamark
Paper - mixed media and white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Memory Box frame / tree / birds die, Spellbinders sentiment dies, clear embossing powder, pearlized spray, fun foam

Twofer Birds

I love birds as a theme for cards so had to squeeze in some time today to make cards for Darnell's Twofer Card Challenge:

Here's the Twofer photo:

I really love that bird stamp with the wonderful quote on its body.  The card on the left is a thank you card for my sister who has really inspired me to follow some of my passions.  The one on the right is a birthday card for a close friend who does bird watching.  The sentiments for the occasions are on the inside because I wanted to use the word stamps that came with the bird stamp.

First up:

I started with a piece of background I made at Loll Thompson's house using Jennifer Maguire's Distress ink monoprint technique (see video here).  It uses blue Distress ink with a leafy background stamp - this is the monoprint version (or what I think of as the negative version).  It came out a bit patchy so I decided to add some layering with the music background stamp and two of the words that came with the bird stamp.

The bird is stamped, heat embossed, and fussy cut, with its legs glued to the die cut branch and its body popped up with dimensional tape.  The whole panel is popped up on fun foam.

And the second card:

I put the bird stamp in my MISTI and coloured it with Distress markers, repeating until I was happy with the results.  Then I put the "happiness" stamp in the MISTI and got it close to the bird's feet to ground the bird.

I placed a leafy stencil over it and used a finger dauber to sponge around the bird with pale blue and pale green.

After I trimmed the panel into a square, I decided I needed something below the "happiness" stamp as I'd kept the stencil sponging above it.  So I wrapped twine around the bottom.  And then had an "ah ha" moment that it would be perfect on a kraft base - popped up on fun foam of course for some dimension.

I'm also adding it to Loll Thompson's new CAS Stencil Challenge:

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies for card 1:

Stamps - Fiskars "For the Birds" set, Impression Obsession music background, unknown leaf background stamp

Ink - various Distress blue inks, Adirondack Lake Mist, Vivid Cobblestone, Versafine Onyx Black

Paper - white and brown cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Sizzix branch die, clear embossing powder, foam tape, fun foam

Supplies for card 2:

Stamps - Fiskars "For the Birds" set

Ink - Memento Sky Blue, Distress Bundled Sage, Archival Jet Black

Paper - white cs

Size - 5.25" square

Accessories - Distress markers, Dina Wakely Little Birdies Leaf stencil, twine, fun foam