Every Friday I share a card with you designed specifically for the As You See It Challenge blog. I quite like the card I have for you today created with the Christmas Bauble stamp that I received as a free gift from the Abbotsford Fall Conference, the Holiday Invitation stamp set I received from the Inspire Create Share Stampin’ Up Convention in Utah, and my favourite Gorgeous Grunge stamp set of which I happen to have an extra set that I won at the Abbotsford Fall Conference. How awesome it that!!
I love the simplicity that this sketch offers and I decided to go with it as a simple design, but with a LOT of colouring using my Stampin’ Up! Blendability markers and a bit of fussy cutting. I chose a Very Vanilla card base, on which I stamped two of the splatter images from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set in the Encore Gold ink. Then I used a ruler and my Gold Dazzle marker to draw a frame directly on the card base.
Then I stamped the Christmas Bauble stamp on Very Vanilla card stock twice with Momento Tuxedo Black ink – once as a full image and once just for the center circle of the image. These I coloured with the Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive Blendability markers and hand cut the image with my Paper Snips (LOVE these scissors!). I added a touch of the Gold Dazzle marker to the tiny dots on the image as well as some Cherry Cobbler Dazzling Details to the red holly berries and set that aside to dry.
The center circle has been given a layer of Crystal Effects, which I gave ample time to dry overnight before applying it to the Christmas Bauble with Stampin’ Dimensionals. I attached the bauble itself to the card base with Stampin’ Up! Dimensionals as well, then added the Linen Thread bow with a Glue Dot which I first rolled into a smaller dot so it wouldn’t show under the thin Linen Thread.
The sentiment from the Holiday Invitation stamp set was stamped on a strip of Very Vanilla card stock in Cherry Cobbler ink. I hand cut the flagged edge of the paper strip and slipped the end under the center circle of the bauble and secured it in place with Multipurpose Liquid Glue on the bauble side and a Dimensional on the flagged end.
And I love how it turned out! Have you ever hand drawn anything directly on your stamped card? I don’t do it very often but am pleased with what it added to this card.
Why don’t you give the challenge a try? We love to receive inspiration from all the designs that come in. So link up your card or project that you do with this As You See It Challenge sketch and show us what you came up with!
Check out my design this week for the As You See It Challenge blog using An Open Heart stamp set from Stampin’ Up! I love the blended ombre effect in the winter background.
I was leery of the sketch this week. The small center square bugged me. But the funniest thing happens when I am lacking inspiration with a particular layout or colour scheme: I end up really liking the final product!
I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with for this one. I found it so challenging! I decided to use the little bird from the An Open Heart stamp set in place of that square. The snowflake sequins (which were too stark white, so I coloured them with my Light Coastal Cabana Blendability marker), are in place of the flowers on the As you See It layout above. The rest is eye candy for me! Techniques and fun! The stuff I thrive on!
I started with a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and began using sponge and ink to shade the evening sky background. I was inspired by an image I found on Pinterest for this colour scheme and I love it! With a sponge, from top to bottom, I applied Night of Navy, Island Indigo, and Bermuda Bay ink. Once I was satisfied with the saturation of colour, I added a touch of Momento Black to the very top edge to complete the look. The most bottom edge of the Very Vanilla cardstock was left un-inked and I tore the edge for a bit of texture detail.
Then I stamped the branch image from An Open Heart in Night of Navy ink. The pearls were coloured with the Medium Cherry Cobbler Blendability marker and added for the berries on the branch. I then decided to use my Chalk Marker to accent the buds on the end of the branch. The snowflakes were also coloured (as mentioned above) and adhered to the card with a small dab of Crystal Effects. The Merry Christmas sentiment is from the Petite Pairs stamp set and was stamped with Real Red ink.
The blue bird was stamped with Momento Black ink and coloured with Night of Navy and Coastal Cabana Blendability markers and a touch of Dazzling Details glitter was applied to the bird as though a wee bit of snow was glinting in the moonlight. His beak was coloured using a Tangerine Tango Stampin’ Write Marker. I cut out the bird with my Paper Snips and cut his little legs right off so he could be sitting all comfy-like on the branch. I also used my Project Life journaling pen to darken his beady little eye so it would have a little more life in it (a trick I learned in the watercolouring class I took last spring). That sweet little winter bird was then adhered to the cardstock with Stampin’ Dimensionals.
After wrapping the Cherry Cobbler Baker’s Twine around that layer of cardstock, I used Stampin’ Dimensionals to layer it over the thin mat of Very Vanilla Cardstock. This all was adhered to the Night of Navy card base which looked a little flat next to all that deep blue ink, so I added a bit of Night of Navy ink to the edges of the card base with a sponge.
I have a card for today’s colour challenge that uses the Snowflake Card Die from Stampin’ Up! with some atypical snowflake colours and I think it turned out beautifully!
Check out this palette:
When you think of beautiful snowflakes, do you imagine them in red and brown? Not usually. You probably think of white, silver, or blue if you have snowflakes on an art project. However, these challenge colours: Baked Brown Sugar, Cherry Cobbler, and Silver give a warm earthy feel to something normally cold and crisp. Snowflakes fall slowly and quietly, they dampen the noise in the street, all while you are warm and cozy by the fire in your living room. These are cozy colours of sitting by the fireplace on a cold, snowy day.
I have been aware that I need to slow down a bit lately and have been completely unsuccessful. In fact, I think I’ve had more going on in the last month than I’ve had in a long time! The autumn months are always busy in the stampers world with all of the Christmas preparations. It’s busier with the kids in the fall as well. I find that whenever I’m able to delete something from my time table, another thing comes along to fill its place. I was asked the other day what I do for downtime, to recharge, and I realized it’s been so long that I don’t even KNOW what I do for downtime. Part of that is the busy life of a mom of 3 ever-going kids – I’m always one or two (or 23) steps behind everything! It’s gotten a bit out of hand lately. The house is a disaster with piles of stuff all over the place, boxes of stamping supplies still waiting to be put away after events long gone, school papers from the kids, clothes in boxes that need to go to charity – I’ve lost things in the clutter and have found myself forgetting things while attempting to juggle the activities and events for me and my family.
But … I watched a bird today. It wasn’t doing anything special – just silently flying above the noise of the cars zipping around on street below, in its own world, just being a bird. I think it was playing on a breeze up there. I wanted to be like that. Just ‘in the moment’, not caring about anything or anyone. Enjoying ‘being’.
So, I take notes from the bird and ponder a snowflake falling slowly and quietly, and I am going to try to be more like that for a while. To slow down. To enjoy some ‘being’. And a part of that will be to take a break from my stamping events so I can catch up on the needs of my household and my family. I might even light the fire in our living room and have a cup of tea. Why not? Crazier things have happened before, lol!
I designed my card while I was away at the Creative Escape Retreat at Rockridge Canyon in Princeton, BC. The photo below shows the card closed. I used the Snowflake Card thinlit in the Big Shot to cut the card base but using a full 5.5″ x 8.5″ piece of cardstock so that the thinlit would not cut it on the one end (I’m sure you’ve seen these sorts of dies used this way before – if not, google ‘extended flip card’ and you should find a tutorial’)
The die set for the Snowflake Card thinlits includes the die for the Silver Glimmer snowflake in the center of this card as well as the Joy and the mini snowflake that are inside the card. It has a bunch of die shapes that are all very useful.
Oh, my goodness, I used a ton of things on this card:
The photo below shows the card with the snowflake flipped to it’s other side as the card is opened.
The next photo shows the card fully opened to reveal the available writing space and the entire inside of the card.
You might be wondering how I cut the large Cherry Cobbler snowflake when there isn’t a die that fits in that space. I used the full thinlit die for the card base and laid it on a piece of Cherry Cobbler cardstock that was just big enough to fit that section of the thinlit. I ran that through the Big Shot, which leaves you with a partially cut large snowflake. I then removed the partially cut piece of Cherry Cobbler cardstock and repositioned it by 90 degrees so that when I ran it through the Big Shot again, it would cut the areas that weren’t cut the first time. Because the top and bottom of the shape are exactly the same as the sides of the shape, this works! Easy peasy!! (Maybe not as easy to understand with written words, sorry I don’t have a quick photo tutorial for you).
I hope you give this colour combo a try and link it up to the As You See It Challenge blog! I love to see what you come up with!
I love the simplicity that this sketch offers and I decided to go with it as a simple design, but with a LOT of colouring using my Stampin’ Up! Blendability markers and a bit of fussy cutting. I chose a Very Vanilla card base, on which I stamped two of the splatter images from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set in the Encore Gold ink. Then I used a ruler and my Gold Dazzle marker to draw a frame directly on the card base.
Then I stamped the Christmas Bauble stamp on Very Vanilla card stock twice with Momento Tuxedo Black ink – once as a full image and once just for the center circle of the image. These I coloured with the Cherry Cobbler and Old Olive Blendability markers and hand cut the image with my Paper Snips (LOVE these scissors!). I added a touch of the Gold Dazzle marker to the tiny dots on the image as well as some Cherry Cobbler Dazzling Details to the red holly berries and set that aside to dry.
The sentiment from the Holiday Invitation stamp set was stamped on a strip of Very Vanilla card stock in Cherry Cobbler ink. I hand cut the flagged edge of the paper strip and slipped the end under the center circle of the bauble and secured it in place with Multipurpose Liquid Glue on the bauble side and a Dimensional on the flagged end.
