Recycled Owl

The 52 Christmas Card Throwdown challenge wants:

I've saved quite a few of the store-bought cards I've received over the years and I do love recycling parts of them.  It's how I got into card-making in the first place!  I had received so many beautiful cards that I couldn't bear to toss in the recycling bin so I made them into new cards and bought one ink pad and one Merry Christmas stamp and it all snowballed from there!

This card is for a friend who loves owls - I make her an owl-themed Christmas card every year so I'd saved the image on this one specially for her (I only have so many festive owl stamps!).

I trimmed the owl image with an inverted scallop die, cut a mat using a blue-silver shimmer cs and the next largest inverted scallop die, layered it on off-white cs that I stamped with the sentiment, and then used a gold shimmer card base.

I need to do more of this as I have lots of lovely store-bought cards I can use.

Supplies:

Stamps - Rosie's Roadshow sentiment

Ink - Vivid Cobblestone

Paper - gold and blue-silver shimmer cs, off-white cs, owl image cut from commercial greeting card

Size - A2

Accessories - Nesties inverted scallop dies

Winter Birds

I love birds on cards and also in real life - I have several bird feeders up in my backyard and love seeing all the birds out there.  I get a lot of birds in the winter so thought they'd be a good subject for this month.

This image reminds me of the clusters of birds sitting in my trees, waiting their turn at the feeders.

I tried using cling wrap with a watercolour wash (without the spray starch that I usually use with cling wrap).  I did quite a wet wash with blue watercolour paint and then scrunched up the cling wrap and left it overnight to dry.  I didn't get the really noticeable texture that you get with spray starch - just a bit of very subtle texture - easiest to see down at the bottom right corner.

When thoroughly dry, I stamped the image.  It looked a bit blah, so I sponged a bit of blue ink around the edges, since I wasn't planning on bordering it with anything.

I popped it up on fun foam and scattered a few die cut snowflakes (cut out of the same white cs as the card base) around the outside.

Supplies:

Stamps - Viva Decor

Ink - Archival Jet Black, Distress Salty Ocean

Paper - watercolour paper, white cs

Size - A2

Accessories - blue watercolour paint, cling wrap, small snowflake dies, fun foam

Singing "Let It Snow"

Vancouver's snow and colder temperatures are lingering.  I still have large sections of snow in my garden and neighbourhood wherever the sun isn't reaching to melt it.  They are forecasting some light snow for tomorrow so we could have more!  With this weather it's very easy to come up with a snowy card!

And Christmas Cards All Year Round is asking for a card inspired by a Christmas song or carol so what better than "Let It Snow"?

I started by doing a very pale stencil monoprint with blue brushos and letting it dry, then replaced the stencil and stenciled the snowflakes with a turquoise glitter paste. When dry, I trimmed the panel, bordered with turquoise glitter cs, and added a small sentiment - easy, quick (except for letting the paste dry), and flat for mailing!

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black sentiment

Ink - Versamagic Ocean Depth

Paper - turquoise glitter and white cs, mixed media paper

Size - A2

Accessories - PaperArtsy snowflake stencil, Cosmic Shimmer Electric Blue Sparkle Shimmer paste, blue brushos, clear embossing powder, SU label punch

Glittered Poinsettia

The Jingle Belles challenge is "All that Glitters" and I've used plenty of glitter on this card:

I stamped the poinsettia in black on a piece of acetate and heat embossed with clear ep.  Working on the opposite (or back) side, I added glue carefully inside the lines of the image, doing the leaves first and adding green glitter, and then doing the flower, except for its centre, and adding red glitter, and finally the centre of the flower and adding gold glitter.  I set it aside to dry for a few hours.

I dry embossed the background, created a frame to go on top of the acetate, and stamped and heat embossed a white sentiment on black cs, trimming it into a banner.  I tucked the sentiment under the frame and put everything together.

It was really hard to photograph the card to capture the sparkle of the glitter, but trust me it's there!

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black poinsettia, Make an Impression sentiment

Ink - ColorBox white, Versafine Onyx Black

Paper - white and black cs

Size - A2

Accessories - acetate, SU embossing folder; green, red, and gold glitter; Spellbinders rectangle die, clear and white embossing powder