Season's greetings

This past year has brought both positive and negative experiences for me and my husband, especially on the health side, but creatively, 2016 has been an amazing year. I have created more cards than in any previous year and received wonderful recognition for various creations. The cards I enjoy making the most are Christmas card, so it is only fitting that I bring you another Christmas card for my 100th post of this year.

I created this card today for this month's Rerun challenge over at the Winnie & Walter blog. I love that they feature an older stamp set each month and inspire us to give this stamp set a little more love or to create something inspired by the creations from the design team.

I started by stamping the solid poinsettia image (In Bloom: Hollie's Festive Florals, Winnie & Walter) repeatedly using Altenew's Coral berry ink. I loosely followed this month's STAMPloration sketch (flipped). Next, I stamped the outline image using Grapevine ink, also by Altenew. After deciding where I wanted to stamp my sentiment (Winter Woodland, Winnie & Walter), I stamped the heart of the surrounding flowers using my new Tsukineko Delicata inks.

I thought I was being smart getting the Quartet set containing 4 mini ink pads, but I had no idea they were fixed in a single row and are therefore rather useless (or very inconvenient to say the least) to ink up larger stamps. However, for my tiny flower hearts they worked great. For the flowers, I used Celestial Copper, and then decided to stamp a few more to fill in the white gaps between my poinsettias. For this, I used both Celestial Copper and  Golden Glitz. And I can only confirm the findings of other card makers that they are deliciously shimmery in real life.

I stamped the sentiment in Archival black ink and mounted my panel onto an A2 card base of pearlescent off white cardstock. Lastly, I wrapped some Hemptique twine in cream & gold around my card and tied it into a bow.

Challenges:

Winnie & Walter Rerun No. 17 - In Bloom: Hollie's Festive Florals

Allsorts - 396 Something new (my new Delicata inks)

STAMPlorations December Theme & Sketch

CHNC - 314 Anything Christams goes

CHNC Extra - Always Anything Christmas goes

SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes

Joy - Christmas wreath

While I was creating my card from the previous blog post, I thought I might just as well finish one of cards I had started earlier this year. After stamping the wreath (In Bloom: Hollie's festive florals, Winnie & Walter), I added a little shading using coloured pencils. I then stamped the berries and the sentiments (Brushstroke Christmas, Essentials by Ellen). When I wanted to add sparkle to the berries, a big blob of sparkly landed on my panel when I took off the cap of my marker, so I turned it into a feature and added dots of varying sizes in various places. For what's Christmas without a little sparkle, right?

All that was left to do, was mount my panel onto some red paper and adhere this to the front of my card. And that completes my first Christmas card for 2017!

Challenges:

Winnie & Walter - Rerun No. 17 - In Bloom: Hollie's Festive Florals

HLS - December Christmas Challenge:Wreath

STAMPlorations - December CAS challenge: Red and green (optional twist)

Creative with Stamps - 9 Use Christmas stamps

SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes

Cards in Envy - Celebrate the season

CAS-ual Fridays - CFC164 Celebrations

Just because...

After a week of lazing about, I decided it was time to create a new card using some of the supplies from the Black Friday sales that arrived last week. I was inspired by a couple of challenges and a technique video by Jennifer McGuire that I watched again this week. The technique is about negative space colouring. So instead of colouring the image, I left the image blank and coloured only the outside, using distress ink blending.

I used my MISTI to stamp the beautiful flower image (You are enough, Concord & 9th) in a light ink colour and then stamped it again onto a piece of masking paper. I cut out the image and masked off the image on my white panel before blending various distress inks in wintry hues (tumbled glass, broken china, faded jeans and seedless preserves) using my Clarity brushes. After the ink had fully dried, I stamped the image again in Versamark ink and heat embossed it using Liquid platinum embossing powder. After cutting my panel to the desired size, I added the sentiment (Brushed blossom, Concord & 9th), which I also heat embossed in Liquid platinum.

I mounted my panel onto a dry embossed (Starry night, Sizzix) A2 card front using foam tape and added a few sequins as a finishing touch.

Challenges:

Where Creativity Meets C9 - 4 Winter

Allsorts - 394/395 Blue Bingo
(3rd row horizontal - masking, dry embossing, blue and purple)

SSS Wednesday challenge - Anything goes

AAA Cards - #80 Silver