Ombre Christmas

Hello crafty friends! Are you aware that Christmas is only 6 months away? How did that happen?!
It does mean that I need to get serious about building up my Christmas card stack.

So here I am with another Christmas card.

After watching Lydia's video (through the link on the CAS Mix Up challenge blog) on ink blending methods, I was inspired to pull out my Clarity brushes and CP inks to do some very soft ink blending to create an ombre effect. It was amazing to see that even the smooth Neenah solar white cardstock shows some kind of texture when you blend inks this way. I started with Stone Blue and Daydream, and then carefully blended in some Juniper Mist along the top edge. I had purposely cut a larger panel than I needed for my A2-sized card, so that I could trim off any harsh edges. I used the strip that I trimmed off from the top to heat emboss my sentiment in gold ep and then die cut the sentiment strip using an MFT slider die, in 2 passes through my die cutting machine/

The sentiment die is by Christina Griffiths (Card Making Magic) and I die cut it from white glitter cardstock as well as white fun foam for added dimension. I popped up the sentiment strip using very thin foam tape.

I'm playing at:

CAS Mix Up - Ombre, stamping +

 ink blending, heat embossing, die cutting, glitter (cardstock)

HLS Christmas - Anything goes

HLS Anything goes with dies

CHNC - #443 Anything Christmas goes 

Sparkles Forum - #117 No patterned paper

Poppin' Over

I'm popping in today with a card using some of my new Create a Smile supplies as well as the current sketch at the Create a Smile challenge blog.

I started by masking off my card panel (Neenah desert storm) and blending white pigment ink through a stencil (Say it, Create Smile) using a make-up blending brush (which happens to work really well). I used the same cardstock to stamp my images (Poppin' over, Create a Smile) in Rich cocoa (Memento), coloured them in with coloured pencils (Prismacolors and Spectrum Noir). I fussy cut them and arranged them on my card, together with some of the ephemera from the Coffee Collection card kit.

I'm playing at:

Create a Smile - Sketch challenge

SSS Wednesday - Masculine

Addicted to Stamps - #175 For a boy/man

Cute Card Thursday - #585 Anything goes

Colour Crazy - #22 Anything goes colouring

Celebrate the Season

Today's card was inspired by Heather's May colour combo challenge at the Winnie and Walter blog.

I was inspired by the colours as well as the inspiration photograph below.

After masking off the bottom part of my panel, I used make-up blending brushes to blend my 3 colours of CP ink and then repeatedly stamped the trees from Scenery: Into the woods (W&W) in Versafine onxy black ink. I used the same ink to stamp the 2 small images from Happy Christmas onto a scrap of cardstock and heat-embossed them in clear before fussy cutting them out. The sentiment is from the Sentimental winter set. I die cut the panel using a stitched rectangle (SSS) and then adhered everything to my white card base.

I'm playing at:

W&W May colour combo with Heather

Crimbo Crackers - #186 Anything Christmas goes

Christmas at Sweet Stampin' - Anything Christmas goes

Stamping Sensations - Show your true colours (lots of colour)

HLS Christmas - Anything goes (optional: non-traditional)