Encre, papier, ciseaux

Seasonal Birdhouse

Inspiration: Cut It Up Challenges #319 (Use more than one die-cut) + Colour Inkspiration #179 

The Nordic Winter stencil set from Honey Bee was the starting point for this project. I used Balmy Blue and Shaded Spruce on white cardstock to create a background and I cut it to size using the Dotted Rectangle Stackables dies. 

Looking through my dies for inspiration, I spotted Build-A-Birdhouse and the Christmas Add-on as well as the Winter Wonderland Window dies. I started cutting the pieces to make a colorful little birdhouse, adding snow made out of glitter paper and little peppermints embellishment on the shutters. I thought the Pink Frosting glitter paper from Tonic might match the Flirty Flamingo cardsock nicely, so I used it to cut the snowflake frame. It was not quite working out like I wanted, even though the color was a good match. I got the idea to cut the frame again out of gold mirror cardstock, snip the snowflakes off and layering the frame over it and it already looked much better. To tone the stenciled background a bit without hiding it, I layered a piece of pearlescent vellum underneath.

At the top, I used the additional dies from the Build-A-Birdhouse Christmas Add-on set to add foliage and a little bow, topped with another peppermint. At the bottom, I used the last piece from a very old felt ornament set I had on my desk, topping it with a yellow button, a red twine bow and I added twine around the card front as well.

I mounted the card front on a Shaded Spruce card base using dimensional foam, and since the card was thick, I made an oversize envelope out of green gingham patterned paper. I used the snowflakes from the Winter Wonderland Window set and the Pink Frosting glitter paper to embellish the envelope and inside the card.

I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out, especially since I was not sure at first how I would like working with such bright colours for the holidays.

 

 

 

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Shaded Spruce, Real Red, Daffodil Delight, Balmy Breeze, Flirty Flamingo (Stampin' Up!);
Pearlescent Vellum (Lawn Fawn); Rich Gold Mirri (Hunkydory); Pink Frosting Glitter (Tonic);
Glacier Glitter (PinkFresh Studio)
Patterned Paper: Jingle All the Way (My Mind's Eye); Foiled Brown Paper (Unknown)
Ink: Shaded Spruce, Balmy Breeze (Stampin' Up!)
Dies: Dotted Rectangle Stackables, Winter Wonderland Window, Build-A-Birdhouse,
Build-A-Birdhouse Christmas Add-On (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Blender Brushes (Waffle Flower); Midas Touch Aqua Shimmer Brush (Tonic);
Real Red & White Adhesive-Backed Peppermints, Envelope Punch Board, Felt Snowflake,
Designer Button, Thick Red Twine (Stampin' Up!)

 

Warm Wishes and Christmas Merri-mint

Inspiration: Lawn Fawnatics #186 (Coffee, Tea & Treats) + TGIF #502 (red, white and gold)

I looked through my Lawn Fawn sets and dies for the challenge and thought that the mint jar could fit the treats theme, which was perfect for seasonal creating. I realized that this could fit nicely with the TGIF challenge, as I could limit the colours I was using and make the mint red.

I did use grey Copic markers to add a bit of shading inside the mason jar, making sure to avoid touching the mints to avoid any ink bleed. I stamped the lid on gold paper, embossing it in gold powder, and I tied a red ribbon around the jar for a bit of texture.

I was looking for ideas on what to do for the background and decided to use the Layered Plaid dies from Tim Holtz. I did the thinner layer in gold and the larger layer in red. When I placed it over a white card base, I found the result to be too stark, so I decided to try grey cardstock to tone it down, and I have Fog from Lawn Fawn, which is a very soft grey. It made a huge difference and looked much softer, so I added a grey layer in the back, and used the white card base. But I had another surprise - I was not sure why there was such a large margin around the plaid. I would have expected the plaid to be either the exact size of an A2 card or just ¼" smaller, but the size is actually not proportional to a regular card front. Width-wise, it is 3/8" smaller, but height-wise, it is ½" smaller. Make that make sense... I ended up just cutting my card base to size, but I have to admit I was not impressed.

It took me a while to find inspiration for the sentiment. What sparked inspiration is that I spotted the foiled images I had done at Thanksgiving to demo my Glimmer machine to my mom and nieces. I had a few pieces left from that demo that I had slipped into a pocket, and the gold-foiled snowflakes looked perfect to decorate the card. As I was fishing them out, I spotted a metallic red die-cut sentiments that I had also slipped into this pocket after not using it on another project. Here, the size and color was working perfectly, so that solved my problem.

I added one more mint behind the jar and one in the front, popped up on dimensional adhesive, and I topped the snowflakes with ombre glitter drops. I used my remaining images on a red envelope to match.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: How You Bean?, How You Bean? Mint Add-On (Lawn Fawn)
Cardstock: Basic White, Cherry Cobbler, Vellum (Stampin' Up!);
Fog (Lawn Fawn); Opulent Gold Specialty Paper Pack (Sizzix); Red Metallic (Hunkydory)
Ink: VersaMark, Cherry Cobbler (Stampin' Up!); Tuxedo BLack (Memento)
Dies: How You Bean?, How You Bean? Mint Add-On (Lawn Fawn);
Layered Plaid (Tim Holtz for Sizzix); Outlined Christmas Sentiments, Glimmering Snowflakes (Spellbinders)
Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals Red Ribbon (Stampin' Up!);
Sparkle & Shine Ombré Glitter Drops (PinkFresh Studio); Rich Gold Embossing Powder (Wow!);
A2 Red Envelope (Envelopes.com); Markers (Copic)

 

Christmas Book Stack

Inspiration: Color Throwdown #822 

The Merry Bookmas die and stencil set is one of my latest acquisition. i was looking forward to using it and drew inspiration from the Color Throwdown color combo. I paired Lumberjack Plaid and Peeled Paint Distress Oxide and Altenew's Antique Gold inks to do the stenciling, and when using the center die, I used an embossing sandwich, as I did not want the details to be cut out.

I then used my heat tool on the lowest setting to set the ink and proceeded to add words to the books using the Elegant Christmas 2 stamp set. Most of the sentiments were too long so I masked off some words to keep only one and I embossed them with gold powder. This added a very elegant touch to the book stack. 

I wanted to add this to an embossed background and I wanted it to be elegant. I looked at options and immediately jumped on the Scripty 3D embossing folder. Before running it on the cardstock, I did die-cut it to size using the Stitched Rounded Rectangle dies from Lawn Fawn. I wrapped some seam binding at the bottom of the panel to ground the stack and I added some gold foil pearls and gold sparkle crystals around the books and on their spines. 

I created a card base out of Old Olive cardstock and hesitated between using plain cardstock or adding patterned paper. I did not want to make the card too intricate, but since I have so much patterned paper, I thought I'd at least audition something and I figured the Simple Vintage Yuletide collection might work nicely, as I remembered it includes olive green and warm white in it. Sure enough, it worked very well and I loved how the plaid paper looked so this was a no-brainer.

I then started playing with the Layered Books dies to decorate the inside of the card and the matching envelope. This requires a few steps for each book, but the results are quite cute. I am really excited about this bookish card turned out.

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Elegant Christmas 2 (Waffle Flower)
Cardstock: Old Olive, Real Red, Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!);
Opulent Gold Specialty Paper (Sizzix)
Patterned Papers: Simple Vintage Yuletide (Simple Stories)
Ink: Peeled Paint, Lumberjack Plaid Distress Oxide (Ranger); Antique Gold Pigment (Altenew); VersaMark
Dies: Layered Books, Merry Bookmas (Waffle Flower);
Small Stitched Rounded Rectangle Stackables (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Merry Bookmas Stencils, Blender Brushes (Waffle Flower); Scripty 3D Embossing Folder,
Stampin' Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); Seam Binding (Unknown); Rich Gold Embossing Powder (Wow!);
Gold Sparkle Crystals, Gold Foil Pearls (Studio Katia); Green Envelope (The Paper Cut)

 

Lovely Sweater Weather

Inspiration: Tuesday Morning Sketches #785 

After finishing my last layout, I wanted to make a card using the Acorn Lane collection from Simple Stories. I picked plaid for the background and layered a piece of blue bird patterned paper leftover from my layout, plus a thin strip of yellow gingham also left on my desk. I used the vanilla cotton thread I still had on my desk to tie a bow for a bit of texture.

For the circle, I used the Doily die set from Coco and Reno, with the pink polka dot paper. I stuck one of the flower images from the sticker book on a piece of scrap cardstock and fussy cut the image, then I layered it with the sweater image from the cardstock stickers. I looked through my sentiments and picked "have a lovely day" from the Everyday Script stamp set from The Greeting Farm. I stamped the sentiment in VersaMark ink and embossed it with Early Espresso embossing powder. I used the Everyday Sentiment Banners dies from Lawn Fawn to cut it out.

I popped everything up with foam adhesive, and I added an enamel dot to the flower's centre and a decorative brad in the upper right corner. I mounted the card front on In the Navy cardstock. I used a piece of patterned paper to make a matching envelope (slightly oversized since the leaves were hanging off the side of the card). 

 

 

While looking through the sticker book, I had seen a cute image with books, which made me think it would look lovely on a bookmark. One of my recent finds is the Tall Tag dies from My Favorite Things, which worked perfectly to create the bookmark itself. On the back, I used the circle sticker with the glasses. As always with bookmarks, I kept everything flat, and I decided not to add fiber or ribbon to the top of this one.

 

 

 

Supplies
Stamps: Everyday Script (The Greeting Farm)
Cardstock: Buckaroo Blue, Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!); In the Navy (Gina K Designs)
Patterned Papers, Cardstock Stickers, Sticker Book, Enamel Dots, Decorative Brads: Acorn Lane (Simple Stories)
Dies: Doily (Coco and Reno); Tall Tag (My Favorite Things); 
Dotted Rectangle Stackables, Everyday Sentiment Banners (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: Early Espresso Stampin' Emboss Powder, Stampin' Dimensionals, 
Very Vanilla Cotton Twine, Envelope Punch Board (Stampin' Up!)

 

Don't Get Your Tinsel in a Tangle

Inspiration: The Paper Players #718 (Be a Deer) and Tuesday Morning Sketches # 784

I had been wanting to use the Simple Vintage Holly Jolly collection and I was pretty sure it had some vintage deer images, so it was perfect for the Paper Players challenge. Because the Tuesday Morning sketch was using an angled paper, I thought if I cut the top and bottom off rather than just overlay a piece of paper on my card, I could make two cards at the same time, so that's the strategy I went with.

I added gold-rimmed red ribbon to the seams and I die-cut two doilies two place behind my main images, both of which I picked from the cardstock stickers sheet. It felt a little bare, so I looked in the collection for other elements I could overlay. I found some rectangle words in the sticker book, so I mounted them on cardstock and cut them out in order to be able to move them around the card and decide where to layer then. The little circles also came from the sticker book.

 

 

 

  

 

Supplies
Cardstock: Thick Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up!)
Patterned Papers, Basics Kit, Sticker Book, Cardstock Stickers, Enamel Dots,
Bits & Pieces: Simple Vintage Holly Jolly (Simple Stories)
Dies: Decorative Doily Duo (My Favorite Things); Dotted Rectangle Stackables (Lawn Fawn)
Accessories: 1/8" Red Ribbon, Stampin' Dimensionals, Medium Vanilla Envelope (Stampin' Up!)