Snowy Sunrise

This was supposed to be a quick and easy one layer card. But then of course everything went wrong, I started over and switched to doing paper piecing, and the resulting card took me quite a long time. A couple of hours, in fact. Not how I’d planned on it going!

Originally I started by masking off the figures and the snowbank, and sponging my sun. Of course I managed to go over the outside of my mask leaving orange blobs in the sky which is the first thing that went wrong. Then when I coloured in my snowfolk scene with my watercolour pencils and blended them out the colours all bled together, went terribly blobby, and the colour I’d used for the snowlady’s clothes ended up more purple than the red I’d wanted… So I got annoyed and decided to start over.

This time I started by just masking off my snowline and sponging in my orange sky using Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink. Once I was happy with the sky I put on my mask for the sun (making sure to mask further too so I wouldn’t go over the edges again…) and added more ink to the sun area. I then stamped my image, from Art Impressions’ Merriest Christmas Set, onto the background so I would know where to place my paper piecings.

Speaking of the paper piecing… I started by stamping the image onto a snippet of white glitter paper to be the base of my snowfolk and fussy cut that. I used a red polka dot snippet for the snowlady’s coat and hat, and a chevron patterned scrap for the snowman’s waistcoat. For the scarf I used the end of a plaid/tartan pattern.

Initially I stamped the lamp post onto black but it was impossible to see the lines to cut it out, so I switched to a just big enough scrap of silver that I had. Of course I forgot to cut out the “glass” before gluing it down so I had to peel the top off and trim those bits out. I used snippets of gold for the bow and ribbon decorating the lamp post.

Despite the difficulties of the black, I did decide to use a bit for the snowman’s hat. I used my white gel pen to add the band. The dark brown for the twiggy arms was left over from a piece I’d die cut branches from before, which seemed somehow fitting! I had to peel the two front fingers up to fit the broom in because I’d forgot about that before gluing the snowman’s arm down… The broom itself is a snippet of plain light brown, with another snippet of textured brown for the bristles of the brush. I only needed a very small amount of orange for the noses which I quickly found from my snippets folder.

Assembly was fairly straight forward, and I actually adhered most of the pieces immediately after cutting them, to avoid losing little pieces in the mess on my desk! I used my glue pen for the smaller pieces, and Tombow Multi Mono Liquid Glue to attach the larger pieces.

As a finishing touch I used my snow pen to add some puff to the snow on the lamp post.

I did consider adding a sentiment – I really wanted to use “Cold noses warm hearts” from the same stamp set, but there really didn’t seem to be a good place to position it, so I ended up leaving it off. I had also intended to go over the paper pieces adding shading with my colouring pencils, but it had taken me so long already that I just wanted to be finished! I might go back and add the details another time. Also I apparently forgot to do anything with the candle…

Despite this being very different from my original plan, and taking a ridiculously long time, I am very pleased with how it turned out. It came together really nicely and does make a very sweet scene. If I’d known how long it was going to take me though, and how achey my back would end up being from leaning over cutting out fiddly bits of paper, I might not have bothered..!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Mod Squad – “Warm and Toasty – Come in from the Cold!” (the snowfolk are wrapped up toasty-warm!)

Pixie’s Snippets Playground – Use snippets

Simon Says Stamp Monday – Start Afresh (use something brand new – the stamp is one I’ve not used before, I used my brand-new ink blending tool, and this is my first project using my snow pen too!)

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything goes

Time Out Challenges – Inspired by words – “With each sunrise we are given a chance for a new beginning” (I focused on the sunrise)

PS, If you’re looking for my photo-a-day series, it has now been moved over to The Joyful Soul. I do hope you’ll follow me there if you don’t already!