Little Snowman

You may have noticed that the crafty industry has a tendency to get Christmas-y in July. A lot of companies introduce Christmas products, and a lot of challenges have Christmas prompts to play along with. I’ve been working on Christmas cards here and there throughout the year, but “Christmas in July” is a good excuse to work on a few more and try to make sure I have enough cards to send out when the time comes.

I started by card by cutting a panel of white card to just smaller than my card base. I then used a Sizzix circle die to cut three circles from the panel. Placing the die cut panel in position on my card base I used the circles as a guide for where to stamp my images. I used Pink and Main’s Snow Globe stamp set and stamped with MFT Black Licorice Hybrid ink.

After stamping the image I masked them off, then added some very light blue ink blending to the top portion of the circles using a sponge and Altenew Ocean Waves dye ink.

I removed the dies then started colouring the images with my Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers. I used a very light blue to add shading to the snowman, blending it out with my blender pen. I went with a darker blue for the hat and scarf, and used the darkest blue shade for the baubles on the trees. The carrot I of course coloured orange, and yellow for the stars on top of the dark green trees.

Before adding my top panel into place I needed to stamp my sentiment. I used a sentiment from Lawn Fawn’s Merry Messages which I stamped with Versacraft Midnight pigment ink then heat embossed with Simon Says Stamp’s Steel Navy embossing powder.

I adhered the die cut top panel over my card base using foam tape to give it some dimension over my stamped and coloured images. Finally I added some shimmer. I used my clear Wink of Stella (which is slightly more gold in tone) on the stars, then Nuvo Aqua Shimmer (also clear but more silvery than the Wink of Stella) on the snowman.

I’m really happy with this Christmas card. I love the layout and how the images are peeking through from behind. The ink blending works nicely too and looks exactly how I imagined when I had the idea. I hadn’t originally intended to use the tree twice, but I didn’t have a plan for what to put in the third window. I’m glad I eventually settled on the tree as I think the added symmetry looks good.

Love,

Lady Joyful

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Challenges included:

52 Christmas Card Throwdown – Sketch (edit – where it was an honourable mention!)

AAA Cards – Christmas In July

Aloha Friday – Christmas In July

Christmas Crafts All Year ‘Round – Tree

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas

HLS Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes

Crafter’s Castle – Christmas In July

Winter Wonderland – Snowmen