New Year Wishes

Happy New Year to all my followers!

A couple of challenges over at SCS inspired today's cards.  The Free for All challenge is "Happy New Year" and the Inspiration Challenge is to be inspired by a beautiful website of colourways called Design Seeds.

I found two colourways that I loved  "Winter Horizon":

and Color Dreams:

The first was a bit pale and the second a bit too bright - I wanted something in between (Goldilocks or what!).  Here's what I came up with:



I created a background with brushos on watercolour paper, and then stamped my image and heat embossed it in white. I darkened up the edges with a bit of sponging with Distress Faded Jeans.

I added white liquid pearls to the berries.  I stamped the sentiment directly on the panel and it came out crooked so re-did it on a scrap of the brushos background.


Then I decided to repeat the design with black embossing powder instead of white.

I made the brushos closer to the paler of the two inspiration colourways.  And got my sentiment straight on the panel this time!  Instead of sponging the edges, I mounted it on a piece of black cardstock.

I personally prefer the white version.  Which do you prefer?

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black bush, Happy Little Stampers sentiment

Ink - Versamark (1st card), Versafine Onyx Black (2nd card)

Paper - watercolour paper;  white linen cs (cardbase for 1st card); white and black cs (2nd card)

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - white liquid pearls; white embossing powder (1st card); black embossing powder (2nd card)

New Moon Through a Window

I like doing the SCS Ways to Use It challenges but was too busy with Christmas baking last week to do the "Windows on the World" challenge so combined it with this week's "A New Moon" challenge.

The trees are stamped and heat embossed, and at the end I put some Rock Candy glitter on the snowy parts.

I made the moon mask by cutting a small Spellbinders circle and then recutting it with the die moved over to get a crescent shape.

Then I sponged the sky, leaving it lighter where the moon would cast some light.

I cut two of the windows and glued them together for substance. And used a dp as "wallpaper".

I've stamped "Happy New Year" inside so will send it to a friend I didn't send a Christmas card to.

Supplies:

Stamps - unknown tree stamps

Ink - Versafine Olympia Green; Distress Faded Jeans, Chipped Sapphire, and Dusty Concord

Paper - white cs, Recollections dp

Size - A2

Accessories - Memory Box window die, clear embossing powder, Rock Candy glitter

Happy Christmas, Everyone!

52 Christmas Card Throwdown has us picking any one of their challenges from 2016.  I chose the April Colour Challenge:

And made these cards using an older cardinal stamp:

I thought I'd do the same card but with different gold embossing powders.  Here are larger photos of each:

The first one is a very shiny metallic look and the second a sparkly glittery look.

One of my goals for next year is to try and use whatever stamps or dies I have out and make at least two cards from them.  The cards need not be identical - I just want to make my card making more efficient and productive.

A very Merry Christmas to you all!

Supplies:

Stamps - Inkadinkado bird, SU sentiment

Ink - ColorBox gold

Paper - white cs, gold cs, gold glitter cs

Size - 4.75" square

Accessories - Lil Inker stitched circle die, Spellbinders circle die, Stampendous gold embossing powder, Ranger Ancient Gold embossing powder

Mixing Sponging and Watercolouring

I needed a couple of Christmas-themed cards that didn't actually say "Merry Christmas" on them, to send to friends who won't be feeling very merry this Christmas because of losing loved ones recently.

I'm linking this first one to the CAS Mix Up challenge.

This month the challenge is sponging.  Because I'm not very good at watercolour wash backgrounds, I thought I'd try watercolouring the image and sponging the background.

I stamped and watercoloured the image, then masked it, and sponged the background with a couple of shades of blue Distress ink.  I splattered with watered-down white acrylic paint but I'd watered it down too much so wasn't happy with the splatter I got, so added some white Frantage and heated from underneath.  I die cut the focal image and added it to a dry embossed background.

So for CAS Mix Up, I have sponging and stamping, and for my choice, I have watercolouring, splatter, die cut, heat embossing (the Frantage), and an embossing folder.

Because I'd fussy cut the mask, I decided to use the same image and technique for the second card but didn't add as many options to it.

I used slightly different colours for both my watercolouring and sponging, and added a less diluted acrylic paint splatter and a few die-cut snowflakes.

I love this new stamp!  I didn't do anything fancy with the snow on the leaves and branches, but want to use it for future cards and add glitter or Flower Soft to the snow.

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black, various blue Distress inks

Paper - watercolour paper, white cs, black cs (for border in card 2)

Size - A2

Accessories - white acrylic paint, Gansai Tambi watercolour paints;  Card 1 - Stampendous Frantage chunky white embossing enamel, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Sizzix framelit die;  Card 2 - small snowflake die