HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive | Warm & Cozy Wishes | Christmas Series #1

Hi Friends! To help spread some holiday cheer, I’ve joined the Hero Arts HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive so you’ll be seeing many of us creating additional holiday cards to support this effort and all the cards will be donated to the Bay Area Rescue Mission in December.

I started this card by loosely water coloring a piece of Strathmore cold press, watercolor paper with Tim Holtz’s Distress Oxide Reinkers in the Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans colors. After the watercolor panel dried, I used the Simon Says Stamp / Stampers Anonymous Stamptember 2022 collaboration release and only used the snowy stencil that was part of this set and applied the Ranger Distress Snowfall Grit Paste over the stencil to add sparkly, snowy goodness to my watercolor panel.

For the Christmas tree, I used the Sizzix Thinlits die set called Layered Christmas Tree (664712) and began cutting out my Christmas tree elements. I used two colors of green cardstock from my stash for the tree and Cardstock Warehouse’s Diamond Print Glitter White cardstock for the snow on the tree. After die cutting the green tree pieces, I took a blending brush and carefully edged the cardstock pieces with Altenew Crisp Dye Ink in the Mountain Pine and Moss colors to give them a bit of dimension. After the ink dried, I glued all the pieces of the lighter green tree parts and the snowy cardstock pieces to the Christmas tree base which made the cutest little Christmas tree for the card.

Using my Trinity Stamps Modern Embossed Rectangle Stack dies, I used the largest die to cut an A2 size piece of navy cardstock and next smaller size die in this set was used to cut my watercolor/stenciled panel so I would have a small navy border around the main portion of the card front. Once I glued those two elements together, I used the Avery Elle Slimline Borders die set and selected the rolling, stitched hill die to cut my snowy ground out of Cardstock Warehouse’s Diamond Print Glitter White cardstock and glued this element to the bottom of the card front. Then I applied the Simon Says Stamp 3D Foam Squares to the back of the Christmas tree and adhered it to the card front.

For the sentiment, I used the Spellbinders Glitter Wishes hot foil plate that said, “Warm & Cozy Wishes”, and the Spellbinders Silver Glimmer Foil to foil the sentiment to a piece of navy cardstock. I then cut my foiled sentiment and a piece of Cardstock Warehouse Stardream Silver cardstock into tags using the Spellbinders Swallowtail Tags die set. To complete the sentiment, I used three strands of DMC Diamant Silver (D415) metallic thread and fed those through the eye of the stacked tags and separated the two tags just a bit and used foam squares to attach them to the top of the card front.

Now I needed to complete my tree decorating. I used the Taylored Expressions’ Rainbow Rhinestones and glued various colors and sizes across my tree to represent ornaments. I loved that the subtle colors of these rhinestones didn’t compete with the snow background yet added a beautiful amount of sparkle and interest to the tree. All that was left was to glue the card front panel to a top folding, A2 size card base and this card was ready to go!

I hope you enjoyed this project and found inspiration to aid you in preparing your own holiday cards. Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…

Halloween 2022 | Project #8, Trick or Treat

Hi friends! Today’s card was inspired by a recent faux dip-dye watercolor technique I learned from Kristina Werner (IG: @starofmay, YT: K Werner Design). Kristina is an extremely talented card maker and has so many amazing techniques to share on her YouTube channel, if you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend you checking out her channel… AMAZING ARTIST!

I started by taping a piece of Strathmore Watercolor Paper to one of my hardboards using blue painter’s tape and gathered my watercolor paints, paint brush, and a cup of clean water to create the background for my card front. I used Kuretake Watercolor Paints (#31, #46, #47, and #20) and about halfway down the page began painting layers of the colors I listed previously beginning with a very watered-down version of #31 and dried that layer with my heat gun before proceeding to apply the next layer of paint. Each subsequent layer of paint is going to be darker and darker until I eventually ended up with black. Each layer must be dried before adding the next layer of paint. It’s such a fun painting technique – this is a link to Kristina’s YouTube video where she uses this technique to create a card: 🔴 EDITED REPLAY - Faux Dip-Dye with Watercolor (4 color combos) - YouTube.

Once my painted background was completely dry, I misted the entire panel with a couple sprays of Technique Junkies’ Iridescent Shimmering Bliss. Next, I used Trinity Stamps’ Modern Embossed Rectangle Stacks to die cut the panel and adhered it to a black, top folding, A2 size card base using Simon Says Stamps’ Big Momma Foam Tape.

To finish the card, I stamped the Trick Or Treat sentiment from Simon Says Stamps’ Handlettered Halloween stamp set using Altenew’s Embossing Ink onto a piece of black cardstock and dusted it with Ranger’s Silver Super Fine Embossing Powder and set it with my heat gun. I fussy cut the sentiment, applied foam adhesive to the back and adhered it to the card front. Card complete!

Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…

Halloween 2022 | Project #7, Dungeon & Dragon

Hi friends! Today’s card is a fun one that was inspired by the Whimsy Stamps Dungeon Door red rubber stamp and an adorable Katzelkraft stamp called Dynosaurus. I have been wanting to use these stamps all month, unfortunately life got busy, and I am only now getting around to creating a card with them. I hope you find inspiration in this creation and Happy Halloween!

For this A2 sized card, I began by stamping the Whimsy Stamps Dungeon Door onto a piece of Canson XL Bristol Smooth cardstock and colored the image using Copic markers. For the grays I used a mixture of Copics in neutral and cool grays. Next, I stamped the Katzelkraft Dynosaurus stamp (CUTE!!) onto another scrap of the same cardstock and colored it with Copic markers using these colors: Y02, Y17, YR16, G14, G17, and G28. I used my Brother Scan N Cut to cut out the dynosaurus image and applied foam adhesive to the back.

Using Pink & Main’s Concave Rectangle Dies – the largest die in the set, I positioned the die onto the dungeon door, colored image and ran it through my die cutting machine. I then glued the die cut image to an A2 size piece of the Ranger Distress Black Two-Tone Woodgrain cardstock and removed the foam tape backing from the dynosaurus’ foam tape and adhered it to the card front’s background.

The sentiment was created using the Whimsy Stamps’ Dracula I Compel You stamp set. I stamped the Happy Halloween on a Copic colored (G14) piece of cardstock with VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink, trimmed it to size, and attached it to the top of the card front using a strip of black adhesive foam tape. I finished the card by adding some embellishments from Pink & Main’s Floral Pumpkin Sparkle Dots.

Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…