PENGUIN TREE 2

Mostly, my Christmas cards are one offs,

but sometimes I manage to make a design that just resonates with  me.

This is one of those designs.

I think one of the reasons I love these penguins, is that they are so easy to stamp and die cut, and colouring them is a doddle.

Even with a 're-make' card, I like to change things a little. 

Here, I've opted for a warmer background colour and a different die-cut panel.

(You can see my original card  here)

Challenge

Addicted to Stamps - CAS

Mama Elephant - Arctic Penguins, coloured with Copics and Labeled messages

MFT - Stitched Scalloped Border Rectangle and Star from Oh Christmas Tree ( gold heat embossed)

Distress Ink - Fossilized Amber

TRIM THE TREE

Would anyone mind if we just move Christmas back a couple of weeks??
I am so far behind.
I haven't even had chance to buy any Christmas presents yet!  Eek!

At least all my cards are finished.
Here's another with - yep - you guessed it - more penguins :-)

I die cut my 'postage stamp' panel and inked the centre up with distress ink - flicking on some water drops (they show up a little better below).
Then, I tried to make a little 'trim the tree' scene with my penguins and the tree.
That poor penguin at the bottom is losing his footing :-)

Challenge

Addicted to Stamps - Holiday

Supplies
Mama Elephant - Arctic Penguins, coloured with Copics and Labeled Messages
MFT Stamps - Oh Christmas Tree, stamped in Versacolour Green Tea. 
The star is heat embossed with gold Wow embossing powder
Avery Elle - Postage Stamp Die    Lawn Fawn - stitched hillside border

AMELIA

Today, I'm sharing birthday wishes for my niece, Amelia, who is 6 today.

I can't tell you how much I LOVE these arctic penguins.
They have featured in a lot of my Christmas cards this year, and I think they look equally cute, on this winter birthday card.

My idea was for a penguin group selfie, with that one penguin tilting his head, just as the picture is snapped.
Don't we all have one friend who always does that?  :-)

For the ombre letters I inked a piece of card, blending the inks along the centre
and then die cut my letters. They are popped up on tiny foam pieces.
The background is also distress ink, with water drop splatters.

Challenges -
Simon Says Wednesday - Ice Inspiration (ice-skating penguins, cool colours and a little sparkle)
Allsorts - Clean & Simple
Fab 'n' Funky - Make Someone Smile

Supplies.
Mama Elephant, Arctic Penguins - coloured with Copics
MFT - Stitched Scallop Rectangle and Stitched Alphabet Dies
Distress Inks - Spun Sugar and Shaded Lilac.        Sequins

MERRY AND BRIGHT

Hello.
Most of my Christmas cards are made now, so the pressure is off and
I can have some fun with the final ones.
I went a for non-traditional colour combo, for this merry and bright card.

I started by stamping my birch trees and heat embossing them in white.
Then I inked over them with shades of lilac and green.
I added a stitched hillside border, stamped with my sentiment and a couple of die cut birds.
I can't capture it with my camera, but the white embossing does give this card a lovely sheen, and I added a few sequins and gems for some extra sparkle.

 52 Christmas Card Challenge

Pick a Previous Challenge

#51 June

WPlus9 Winter Woodland
Avery Elle - Sentiment (merriest) and Postage Stamp Die
Distress Ink -  Cracked Pistachio, Shaded Lilac     Versacolor - Magenta
Lawn Fawn - Stitched Hillside Border

Penguin Club

This week has been a blur.
I've had a rotten cold - sneezing and shivering all over the place.
It's on it's way out now, but I'm still not firing on all cylinders.

This is my week's work!!

I'm not sure when I started making all my cards 'top fold', but that seems to be the norm these days.

So much so, that when I made a mistake with this one, and had the fold on the side, it just looks all wrong to me!!

How do you fold yours?

Challenges.

Simon Says Wednesday - Anything Goes 

Supplies

Mama Elephant - Arctic Penguins, coloured with Copics

MFT - Postage Stamp Dies + Itsy Bitsy Polka Dot DP

Wplus9 Sentiment

The Griswold Family Christmas Tree

The Challenge at Seven Hills Crafts is to use your favourite Christmas song, movie or carol as inspiration.
For me that has to be National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
Such an awesome movie. I never get tired of watching it.

My card was inspired by the scene where the family trek into the snow for their tree. As the perfect tree comes into sight, the choral music starts up and it is bathed in a bright light.

"Dad, that thing won't fit in our yard."
"It's not going in our yard, Russ - it's going in our living room."

I die-cut my rectangle and inked it up, trying to create an area where the light would glow behind my tree.
Then I added some water drops for 'snow'.
This is still a new technique to me, and I'm flicking the water on with a paint brush, but I need to find a better way that will give me smaller spots.

Once the background was dry, it was a simple case of adding my hillside border,
stamping the sentiment,  attaching the tree with foam pads and then placing the panel inside the scalloped frame.

Challenge

Seven Hills Crafts

MFT - Oh Christmas Tree stamps and dies and  Stitched Scalloped Rectangle Die

Sentiment - WPlus9 Heartfelt Holiday

Lawn Fawn - Stitched Hillside Border

Inks - Versacolor Cyan and Bisque. DistressInk Scattered Straw and Mermaid Lagoon

POINSETTIA

Arghh!  This card was so out of my comfort zone,
and it nearly ended up in the bin several times.
But I wasn't going to let it beat me :-)

I wanted a more traditional style card for my Mum, 'cos that's what she likes.

So I dug deep and came up with a few, very old, stamps on red sponge. 

I think they must have been a magazine freebie - eons ago!

I stamped my random design, and stamped and gold embossed the sentiment.

It took me forever to Copic colour my flowers and then I was quite pleased with the final result.

Then I ruined the whole thing by using a white wink of stella brush on the petals.

I didn't realise this dried so white, and it washed out the red colour.

Despite going over and over it with the red copic, it's still not as vibrant as it was originally. 

I messed up adding some black dots to fill in the gaps, and also on the grey outline to add a little more depth.

Isn't it frustrating when a card goes like that?

Challenge

52 Christmas Card Throwdown

Stamps that were, I think, a magazine freebie.

Avery Elle - Postage stamp die and 'merriest' sentiment     Copics.   White Wink of Stella

Wow Gold Metallic embossing powder   

Rockin' Christmas

Hello.
It's a pretty miserable day here today.
Cold and sleeting.
I am just debating whether to wrap up and drag myself to the Christmas market tonight. The eggnog lattes are calling me :-)

Here's my card for this week's MFT Sketch Challenge.

If you had told me a few months ago I would be playing with inks and water drops I would have laughed at you. It was so NOT my thing. But, it's kind of crept up on me and I'm having so much fun with it.

Here, I inked and blended a couple of pieces of card. One was die cut with the scalloped rectangle and the other with the alphabet dies. For the alphabet, I placed the dies down the centre blend, so they would have a slight ombre look.

I die cut my bunnies, and coloured them with copics and then everything was popped up on foam tape, for some extra dimension.

Challenge.

MFT Sketch

MFT - stitched scallop die, stitched alphabet dies, strike up the band stamps and dies

'wishing you a' is from MFT together forever sentiments

'Christmas' is from Avery Elle Merriest

Inks - distress cracked pistachio, Versacolor turquoise.

Wobbly Penguin

Hello.
I am so bad at waiting.
When I get an idea in my head (as I often do) I want to carry it out then and there.
Take this card. I wanted to give a 'wobbly' card a go, but scouring the net for the little 'wobblers'
and then waiting for them to drop through the letterbox is just not my style.
Instead, I threw myself head-first into the craft box and came up with a bobbin of wire!
We crafters never throw anything away :-)

For the 'ombre' style, I blended a couple of inks onto some card and then die-cut the MERRY letters. I attached these to my scalloped edge panel, and also smudged a little of the light pink ink, where my penguin would go.

For the wobble, I wrapped some of the wire around a pencil a few times to get a spring, then just used tape to stick the spring to the penguin and card.
Easy Peasy.

Challenge.

Addicted to CAS

Mama Elephant - Arctic Penguins

MFT - Stitched scallop rectangle and stitched alphabet

Avery Elle - merriest sentiment stamps

Inks - DistressInk Spun Sugar, Versacolor Camelia

28 gauge beading wire.

Snow is falling

I am so excited for Christmas.
Is it too early to put my tree up? 🎄🎄🎄
I don't know how much longer I can hold out :-)

 - and when did we get emojis?
Have we had them for ages and I've only just noticed??
Questions, questions  :-)

This is my card for the Muse Christmas Visions challenge.
I've followed the overall design, keeping it pretty simple and adding some background interest.
My elements are fussy cut, with minimal colouring.

Muse Christmas Visions 

card by Chriss Blagrave

Stampendous - holiday home
MFT - stitched scalloped rectangle
Lawn Fawn - stitiched hillside border
Avery Elle - falling snow die

Doe, A Deer

Hello.
Today I'm sharing a card for the Freshly Made Sketches challenge.
This one had me stumped for a while, but I kept playing with die cuts
until my card started to take shape.

I wasn't sure about it at first.
But the crisp, clean, kind of vector style is growing on me .
At first the green was right the way across and on the bottom of the circle,
but at the last minute I covered it with the red, (you can just see I haven't lined it up perfectly)
but, I think it helped to balance it.

Challenges.

Freshly Made Sketches

MFT - Deer Friends and scalloped stitched rectangle die.

Lawn Fawn - stitched hillside borders.   Nestie circle die  

It's too late to be good

Happy Friday everyone.

Today I'm sharing a fun card, that I made for my niece.

The sentiment is stamped with alphabet letters.
I have one of those stamp blocks that has grids marked into it, which is great for lining up the individual letters.
If I have to use a plain block, I attach a sticky note to help line the letters up and then take it away for inking.

Once the sentiment was done I stamped my Mademoiselle Noel at an angle, and then coloured her with Copics and some glamour dust.

Sorry - the pics are a bit dark and they don't show off the pretty sparkle.  I take my pics in the conservatory and the roof in there is still covered in snow!!

Challenge 

Penny Black and  More

Anything Christmas

Penny Black - Mademoiselle Noel, coloured with Copics and Glamour Dust

Avery Elle - postage stamp die

Lawn Fawn - Violet's ABCs

Arctic Joy

Hello.
I couldn't resist playing along this week at Less is More.
The theme is 'purple and gold'.
What a fabulous combo that is, and there are lots of stunning cards already up.
Here's my entry.

I am having lots of fun with inks at the moment, and learning as I go along.

This is the second time I've attempted water drops on my blended background. 

I flicked them on with a paint brush, but they don't show up too well.  

Any tips???

Challenge.

Less Is More  -   Purple & Gold

Mama Elephant - arctic penguins, coloured with Copics

MFT - posage stamp die.   Lawn Fawn - stitched hillside border die

Sentiment - Avery Elle merriest, embossed with Wow metallic gold powder

Inks - Versacolor heliotrope and boysenberry. Distress Ink fossilized amber

Deer Baby

Hello.
I'm paying along at Freshly Made Sketches again this week,
with this 'baby's 1st christmas' card.

I tried to keep the colours a little softer than usual, but still add a touch of sparkle

with the glitter paper and sequins. 

IRL the glitter paper catches the light beautifully.

Freshly Made Sketches

MFT - Deer Friends, stamped in Altenew evening grey ink

Lawn Fawn Hillside borders and Avery Elle postage stamp dies

Lawn Fawn, let's polka mon amie dp and American Crafts glitter paper

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mistletoe and wine

This just about sums up my holiday season.  snort**

Mistletoe and wine with my two gorgeous daughters.

It's hard to capture glitter.
But IRL these party dresses have a lovely sparkle.

Challenge

Addicted to Stamps and More

**Holiday**

Stamping Bella - uptown girls Victoria and Juliette's night out

coloured with Copics and Glamour Dust

Lawn Fawn - Violet's ABCs

Avery Elle - Postage Stamp die

Door to Door

How will you decorate your door?

That's the challenge theme this week over at Merry Monday.

I have an artificial wreath that gets tied to the door knocker - 

it's really very pretty, but I do dream of getting a fresh wreath,

with lots of holly and berries and pinecones.  *Sigh*

For my card I've made a more simple wreath,

adding a few hearts and dots for colour.

The mugs and bow are die cut and popped up on foam pads, 

to give some dimension.

Merry Monday 

WPlus9 - heartfelt holidays

Inks - Altenew - evening grey. Versacolor - camelia, mint, turquoise.

Echo Park - dots and stripes dp

Dasher and Dancer

Yikes!

November already.

I need to speed up my Christmas card production.

Bring on the reindeer...

This was one of those cards that just wasn't working.

It started with the brown reindeer and tree. Not great!

Then, to try and balance it, I added the other tree - 

still not right.

So, I went with another reindeer.

It's definitely better, but I'm still not feeling it  :-)

What do you think?

Challenges

Simon Says - Anything Goes

My Favorite Things - deer friends and zig zag rectangle die

Avery Elle - postage stamp die

Lawn Fawn - stitched hillside border

Echo Park - dots and striped dp

Tickled Pink

I really had to get the old, grey matter firing this week,

to play along at Muse Christmas Visions.

My bin was quickly filling up with inky backgrounds and

*brilliant* ideas, when I came across this large die.

I took the ombre style of the muse card as my inspiration,

and pieced the die with pink shades.

I don't have a bauble stamp or die, so I used a dog instead!!  :o)

Then I stamped my sentiment and added some sequins to

echo the snowflakes.

Muse Christmas Visions

Avery Elle - happy howl-idays and merriest sentiments.

MFT - diagonal stripe sentiment die.    Copics.   Sequins.

Arctic Love

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?

This little stack of penguins makes me happy.

Most of my Christmas cards tend to be one-offs, 

but I think this one has made it to the production line.

This was very simple to put together,

just stacking my penguins in the shape of a tree.

It looked a bit plain at the design stage,

so before sticking down the penguins with foam pads

I sponged a little ink around, as a background.

Challenges

Merry Monday

Mama Elephant - Arctic Penguins, coloured with Copics + Labeled Messages

Avery Elle - Postage Stamp Dies.   Colour Box Ink - Glacier Ice

Star from MFT, Oh Christmas Tree embossed with Wow Gold Metallic

Reindeer Leap

 Hello

I'm sharing a simple card today,

that I think would be good for mass production with just

a change of background colour.

After cutting my panel with a postage stamp die,

I stamped the sentiment and heat embossed it.

(You can't really tell from these photos, but it does catch the light beautifully)

Then I added my reindeer, popped up on foam pads.

I chose a bright blue spotted background which kind of

gives this a masculine feel.

52 Christmas Card Throwdown

Avery Elle - Postage Stamp Die and Merriest stamped in VersaColor Lagoon Blue

Hero Arts - Reindeer    DP - MFT Itsy Bitsy Polka Dots