A Christmas Tail

This card was almost very different. It almost wasn’t a Christmas card. I knew I was going to make a response to the animal challenges from DRS Designs and The Sisterhood of Crafters, but I was planning on doing something perhaps with my owl die. And then… Then the post arrived. And in the post was the Christmas Cats stamp and die set that I had ordered from Simon Says Stamp using the gift card that I won from one of their challenges.

Obviously that changed things. I decided I had to make a Christmas card using the cats. Which resulted in including some more challenges for the card. Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge wants cute Christmas cards, and cats are cute! The Christmas Challenge Extra, One Crazy Stamper, and Christmas at Sweet Stampin‘ all wanted Christmas cards too. And I also included Simon Says Stamp Wednesday‘s challenge, which is to create a scene.
I started by making all the little components for the card. I stamped the present and masked it before stamping the smaller of the two cats to make it look as though he was holding the gift. Then I stamped the larger cat. I was originally planning of stamping the hat first, masking it and then stamping the cat so he would be wearing the hat, but realised then I wouldn’t be able to die cut it, so I did them as separate components instead. I also stamped the tree, then ran all of them through my Big Shot. I didn’t quite line up the taller cat properly, but I think he looks okay.

Next I started colouring using my Lyra Osiris colouring pencils. I started with the hat as that was pretty straight forward. Red all over, darker red for shadows, and a little grey to add shadow to the white areas. I went on to the taller cat who I decided to do grey. I tried to pay attention to light source and wear the shadow would be, even remembering to add shadow where the hat would be! His tummy is white, but I added a slight shadow to it too. Next was the smaller cat. I decided to make him a tabby with orange-y brown colouring. I think the shading on him didn’t work quite as well.

Then I coloured in the tree with three different shades of green. I think perhaps I should have continued longer to try and get a darker tree overall. I then went back to the smaller cat to colour in his little present, adding shading to the ribbon and the box itself, though perhaps not intensely enough as, again, it doesn’t seem to be showing well! I returned to the tree to colour the little ornaments. I decided not to make them too Christmassy looking as the effect I was going for was just that these toys had haphazardly ended up in the tree as decorations, regardless if they had been intended to be.

Going back to the stamps and dies I made the star and a ball of wool. I then coloured those in and started the process of assembly. I adhered the hat to the taller cat and the star to the tree, both using liquid glue. I then realised I should add my sentiment, so I worked out where it would fit then went ahead and stamped it in Memento Tuxedo black.

I used liquid glue to attach the tree to the centre of the card. I then positioned the cats on either side, adhering them with foam tape for a bit of volume. I used liquid glue to add the ball of wool which I tucked in beside the taller cat. I then shaded below the cats with a dark red (which didn’t show…) and then a grey (which barely showed…) colouring pencil to try and ground them. Finally I added some sparkle with Wink of Stella. I applied it to the star, the ribbon on the present, the white on the hat, and some of the tree decorations.

I adore this card. Whilst there is room for improvement I think it is so cute, and I really enjoyed making it. It was time-consuming though – colouring with coloured pencils is! I have so many ideas for cards to make with this stamp set – it’s adorable!

Love,

Lady Joyful