Sparkling Saturdays: Christmas Card Series Day 12

Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year and it's easy to get caught up in all the gifts, events, and parties but it's also important for me to remember the true meaning of Christmas - the day Jesus was born. He came to earth for us, so that we may get to know Him and His great love for us. Isn't that the most wonderful gift of all? I wish all of you will get to experience His great love and have a blessed new year.

This simple card was made with Little Baby Jesus set by Neat and Tangled. This is the perfect little stamp set. I love the images and the font! I stamped the image onto bristol cardstock and masked it with post-it notes. Next, I ink blended a background on using distress ink (Chipped Sapphire). Finally, I watercolored this in using more distress inks (Frayed Burlap) and other waterbased markers/paints. For the finishing touches, I used my Spectrum Noir clear sparkle brush pen (addicted) to highlight baby Jesus and matted this onto textured gold card stock and adhered it to a red card base.

Hope you enjoyed! Merry Christmas and happy new year.
Happy crafting!

Messy Mondays: Christmas Card Series 2016 - Day 11

Welcome to card 11 of my Christmas Card series! We are nearing the end of my Christmas series, which means we are getting closer to Christmas! Can you tell I'm super excited?

The card I'm sharing with you today is similar to this card, but I put in different focal images. I love how versatile this card design is, as you can keep the same basic elements but still get different looks (if you need loads of cards, this is great!). Also, this means you can glitter spray lots of ice blue cardstock at once, without having to brave the cold multiple times. The background was made using Lawn Fawn Hillside Border die and the tree border stamp from Snow Day. The greeting is die cut from SSS Christmas Blessings.

Moving on to the focal image - I've expressed before how much I love penguin stamps as they save so much time on coloring when you're pressed for time! I used Lawn Fawn Winter Penguin set for this and colored this in using N4. N6. N8 and R29 and R46 for the scarf. I also used my Sigma white gel pen to add some polka dots for added interest.

For the finishing touches, I foam mounted the penguin on to an ice rink I cut out from Mama Elephant Artic Penguins stamp set and adhered it to the background panel. Next, I matted this onto a red piece of card stock and then stuck it all down onto a side folding A2 kraft colored card base.

Hope you enjoyed! I''ll be entering this in the Lawnscaping challenge (the last :( !), and SSS Wednesday Challenge.

Happy Crafting!

Sparkling Saturdays: Christmas Card Series 2016 - Day 10

Hello! I'm back with another holiday card today. There's only 8 days left until Christmas!! How did time fly by so quickly? Thankfully, I have bought most of my presents (online shopping = time saver) and now I all I have to do is wrap them up and make a gazillion more Christmas cards. Easy right?

Since there was such great feedback on my last ornament card, I decided to stick with the same theme for this card but switch up the design, while still keeping it clean and simple. For this card, I started out with a piece of white cardstock and used my Versamark Black Onyx to stamp on 3 of the diamond shaped ornaments from the Hero Arts Christmas Crystals CL802 set. While they were still wet, I sprinkled on some Ranger Black Sparkle Embossing powder and heat set it for some added glitter and dimension.  

Once it was all embossed, I used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers to watercolor my ornaments. I added the color mostly on one side, and used a water brush to blend and lighten the color for the rest of the ornament. For more fun and added interest, I added some splatters using the same colors and flicked it onto my card front.

For my finishing touches, I embossed a greeting with white onto a black piece of cardstock. I matted this with a piece of vellum. I adhered some silver thread onto the card before foam mounting it onto my card front. I stuck this panel down onto a side folding red card base and added a few sticker gems.

Hope you enjoyed!

Happy Crafting. 

Messy Mondays: Christmas Card Series 2016 - Day 9

Welcome to Card 9 of my Christmas Card Series! This post was supposed to go up Monday, but it's been snowing lots here and I was just too tired from driving in heavy traffic for work and shoveling. My apologies! Without further delay, let's get started!

I've been needing some quick and simple cards in a hurry (I always mean to start making cards earlier...but it never seems to happen for some reason), so I decided to stamp on some gorgeous ornaments from Hero Arts Christmas Crystals CL802 set in Versamark Black Onyx ink onto bristol paper, that I die cut using my Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies, so I could watercolor them in.

If you follow me on Instagram, you know how EXTREMELY excited I was to finally find the Spectrum Noir Sparkle brush pens in Canada. I've been searching for them everywhere and was resisting from buying them online. I decided it was be the perfect opportunity to test out my new brush pen by using it to watercolor. I added color onto my ornaments using my dual brush Tombow markers and the brush pen blended the color out beautifully. The sparkle that this brush pen gives is amazing - the pictures do not do it justice, although the picture below in the bottom left corner gives you a better indication. These are definitely more sparkly than the Wink of Stellas, and I feel has a broader tip so it's easier to cover large areas (still love my Wink of Stella though!).

These came together pretty quickly and after they were dried, I matted them onto red cardstock. I adhered these onto a cream colored card base and these cards are finished. Easy, right?

Hope you enjoyed.
Happy Crafting!

Sparkling Saturdays: Christmas Cards Series 2016 - Day 8

Welcome to card 8 of my Christmas Card series! Today I will be sharing with you a fun shaker card inspired by all the snowy weather here in Vancouver. I find sitting here writing my post, while staring out the window at the falling snow, super calming and relaxing. I'm very thankful for warmth, food, and shelter this cold Christmas. 

For this card, I stamped on a cute penguin from Mama Elephant Artic Penguin set onto an A2 white card front. Minimal coloring (love these stamps for saving time!) was done using my Copics and then I masked this image off using a post-it note. Next, I stamped a Christmas tree from Jillibean Soup Christmas Ornaments set using green ink, and also masked it off. My background was blended on using my Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, and Chipped Sapphire distress inks and some white snowflakes were stamped using SSS white pigment ink. 

After the focal panel, it's time to get started on the shaker portion of this card! First, I die cut an A2 card from using my Lawn Fawn large rectangle set and then die cut a circle using MFT stitched circle near the top middle portion. I stamped on a greeting underneath the circle using some sentiments from other Mama Elephant sets and adhered a piece of acetate behind the circle. 

I love using Fun Foam instead of foam tape for my shakers because I find I have much better success at this. I traced a circle using the same die from the front portion onto my foam and cut it out using scissors. Next, I used some strong double sided adhesive tape (SookWang) to adhere my foam piece behind my front panel. Now comes the fun part -- adding in all your shaker bits! I put in some red , silver, and green sea glass beads into mine, but you can add anything. I closed up my shaker by adhering my image piece carefully with the center of the circle and pressing it down tightly. Lastly, this was all taped down to an A2 white side folding card base.

For my finishing touches, I die cut a snowflake from silver glitter paper and vellum, and adhered the layered snowflake on the top right hand corner for some added sparkle. 

Hope you enjoyed! I will be entering this into SSS Wednesday Challenge: Ice Inspiration.

Happy Crafting.  

Messy Mondays: Christmas Card Series 2016 - Day 6 and 7

Welcome to another Messy Monday and another post in my Christmas card series! This weekend was full of craziness - from house cleaning and attending baby showers, to Christmas brunch gatherings and watching sport events, so my apologies for not posting on Saturday. To make up for this (and to not throw my 12 cards of Christmas Series off schedule!), I will be sharing with you 2 cards today that makes use of both the positive and negative die cut. This saves you loads of time and gives you double the amount of cards! Vancouver got its first snowfall this season so these card match the weather outside perfectly today :)

For my first card (pictured in the background), I started off with a piece of white cardstock measuring 4.25" by 5.25" and die cut out a snowflake from the top middle using the SSS Eliza Snowflake Die. This snowflake die is definitely one of my favorites - I love the shape and delicate details! I used the negative space left over from the snowflake and added a fun "falling snow" effect by dry embossing this with the CuttleBug Swiss Dots embossing folder. For my sentiment, I heat embossed a greeting onto vellum using Ranger Silver embossing folder and wrapping it around the white cardstock piece. After adhering this down onto a top folding A2 navy card base, silver gem stickers were added inside the snowflake for added sparkle, shine, and definition.

For my second card, I used the snowflake that was die cut out from the last card (positive portion) and smooshed my Versamark ink pad all over it to heat emboss this in the same Ranger Silver embossing powder from the last card. While that cooled, I used a punch of small snowflake stamps from all my Christmas stamp sets to stamp on a background using Versamark, which gives a tone on tone look when dried, onto a muted blue side folding A2 card base. For my sentiment, I stamped a greeting on using navy ink and cut out a banner shape with my scissors. I adhered everything onto the card front using Tombow mono liquid adhesive and added a pearl sticker onto the middle of the snowflake. 

Hope you enjoyed these cards and learned how to used both the negative and positive space effectively! I'll be entering this into the SSS Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes. 

Happy Crafting!