Stampavie Looking Chic Christmas card

Hello everyone,

Welcome to a rather photo heavy post today. I'm delighted to say that I will be joining the ABC Christmas Challenge Design Team from this month. The team has so many talented designers and their work will give you lots of inspiration to help you keep your Christmas card stash growing throughout the year. Thanks so much Samantha for inviting me to join you all.

For the March challenge the themes are 

E - Edge

F – Family

G – Girls

all with a Christmas theme of course!

We have a wonderful sponsor

Wild Orchid Crafts

Wild Orchid Crafts specialise in selling Mulberry Paper Flowers and many other embellishments for card making, scrapbooking and craft projects. We started selling our mulberry paper roses back in 2005. Since then we've added a large selection of different flowers and colour choices. All of our mulberry paper flowers are made using natural, renewable resources. The flowers are all handmade by experienced crafts people using high quality materials and great care is taken to ensure that they are made to the highest standard and beauty. You can see all of our flowers and embellishments on our website http://www.wildorchidcrafts.com

one lucky winner will receive a £10 gift voucher

Helen who is our Hostess this month is also offering a prize, and who wouldn't want this cute Christmas set of dies?

I decided to go with the girl theme and came up with this card

I like to stretch my supplies when I can and although this is not actually a Christmas image, I thought that if I gave her a snowy background we could make her look happy on a Christmas card.

1) Stamp the image from Stampavie, Penny Johnson Looking Chic stamp in Versafine Onyx black ink and emboss with clear powder. I find that black embossing powder always ends up where I don't want it to go, so this is a cleaner alternative.

 

2) Colour the image with alcohol pens. I used the Spectrum Noir Illustrator pens and I have to say I am very pleased with them so far. I love the soft brush end and the bullet point is so handy for tiny things. Once the ink is dry, add dots of Pebeo Drawing Gum and leave it to dry. This drawing gum is really easy to rub off, and you can use a brush to apply it without ruining the brush because it washes out so easily.

3) Stamp and cut a mask for the girl and dog and apply to the image. Cut some post it note into random snowy mounds and stick them over the other mask at the bottom of the panel.  Use the Copic Aircan and a blue Copic marker to airbrush the sky and then let it dry.

4) Remove the masks and rub off the Drawing Gum.

5) Die cut one of the frames from the MFT Pierced Oval Frame set from red card, place it over the image and cut the image to fit it.

6) Die cut the stitched scallop from red card using a die from the MFT Blueprints 23 set.

7) I then had to decide what greeting to use so I had a good look through all my stamps and came up with a mix that (with a bit of scissor surgery) worked. The 'Dashing through the snow' came from the Papertrey Ink 'Santa's Sleigh' set and I cut the 'to wish you' from another stamp in the same set. The Merry Christmas was from the Happy Little Stampers Mixed Christmas Sentiments, and I lined them all up and stamped with red ink.

8) Create some mats and layer everything up onto an 8 by 8 card. I very rarely make large format cards but I'm getting to like them.

The challenge will run until the 31st March, so why not pop over to the ABC Christmas Challenge Blog to see some fabulous inspiration, and join in with us this time.

I'd like to play along with

Hiding in my Craft Room - any holiday

Winter Wonderland - anything Christmas goes

A Snowflakes Promise challenge - anything Christmas/winter themed

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs

Carol x