Hi, everyone! I know Christmas is far away, but somehow, I have another Christmas card to share anyway, featuring the adorable Jolly snowman from Purple Onion Designs. I love how happy he is looking up at the sky, and my initial plan was to turn him into a wintery birthday card, but plans change…
I didn’t have any birthday sentiment dies that fit my slimline plan, but this Stacked Merry die from My Favorite Things was perfect. I die cut four from white card stock and stacked them for a dimensional look, before adding embossing powder on top and heat embossing for a shine that matches the embossed snow in the background. I stamped “& bright” from the Holiday Messages sentiment set onto Blue Yonder card stock from My Favorite Things and white heat embossed. I added my colored piece with the sentiment onto a card base made from that same Blue Yonder card stock and added a few snowflake sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards close to the snowman and the sentiment, finishing off the card with a trail of snowflakes.
I used quite a few colors for this very simple image. Building color to create contrast is key when doing no line coloring, and the first 7 markers in this graphic were all used for the snow. It might be difficult to tell from the photo, but the orange combo I used for carrot is different than the combo I used for the scarf and pocket, which isn’t as bright a combo in real life.
I colored in the candles using a rainbow color palette. Using the largest die in the Slimline Scallop Frame die set from Simon Says Stamp, I die cut six frames from white card stock and glued them together in a stack to form the walls for my shaker card. Into the shaker, I put some micro beads, some flat, iridescent sequins and quite a few “diamonds” from Kort & Godt, before adding a piece of acetate to seal the shaker. I die cut one last scallop frame to put on top, this time from a super glittery silver card stock from Kort & Godt. It’s very sparkly, and the glitter doesn’t rub off, I love it. I die cut Happy birthday from the same cardstock and adhered the letters onto the acetate to finish the card.
Lots of colors for this one. That happens with rainbows 🙂
I stamped 
I used one of the Precious Polaroids dies from My Favorite Things, as well as a wishes die from Mama Elephant. I die cut both four times from Blue Yonder card stock from My Favorite Things and stacked them for a dimensional look. Directly onto the card base, I used a blender brush from Taylored Expressions with Classic Kraft ink from Papertrey Ink over a Tim Holtz mini layering stencil to create some interest in the background. I stamped selected words from two sentiments from the 
I’m woefully short on envelopes to fit A2 cards, and definitely didn’t have any blue, kraft or white ones to go with my card, so I pulled out my A2 V Flap Envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp and created one using scraps of patterned paper from Papirdesign. Blue with snowflakes, can you get any better for a blue, wintery birthday card?
Very limited color palette this time, but it’s no wonder given the size of the image. I also used B90 for the hat, which is a color I’ve made myself.
I adhered everything to my die cut panel, some directly, and some with a couple of more layers of paper behind them for added dimension. I added a couple of veneer snowflakes from Crafty Moly that I’d already white heat embossed with three layers of super detail embossing powder from Ranger. I used a piece of the strip of 12×12″ paper that has the barcode on it from Papirdesign. Their barcode strips are awesome. One side has the barcode and all the information, the other side of the strip actually has a design on it, so nothing needs to go to waste.
I adhered everything onto a card base I made from Classic Kraft card stock from Papertrey Ink. I didn’t have any colored envelopes to match (and I’ve run out of white envelopes for A2 sized cards), so I used the A2 V Flap Envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp to create an envelope from some larger scraps of Maja Design patterned paper.
As usual, I leave you with the Copics I used. In addition to B0000 and the blender, I also used B90, which is a color I’ve made myself, for the sky.
I colored the skater boy using Copics, then fussy cut him right up against the black stamped lines.
I don’t often use green as my main color in my cards, but on boy cards, I think it’s one of the best colors out there, even better than blue. And coming from me, that’s saying a lot. For this one, I used the Geometric Landscape stencil from Altenew, along with five different colors of Altenew ink for my background; Bamboo, Parrot, Grass Field, Shadow Creek and Evergreen. I smooshed the Grass Field onto an acrylic block and added some water to it, before using a paint brush to create green paint splatter in the background. I also pulled out my Black Marble ink spray from Ranger (Dylusions) and did the same with that.
I mounted my ink blended background to a white card base using lots of foam tape, before adding the skater boy on top using some 
Blues, greens, gray and a little bit of skin and hair.
I realized I hadn’t done my signature cluster in quite some time, so I found a few scraps of patterned paper from the Home for the holidays collection from Maja Design and die cut a couple of tickets from the scraps using my Happy Days Ticket Stubs die from XCut. I adhered them to the top right of the card and cut off the excess, before white heat embossing a couple of snowflakes from Crafty Moly. I white heat embossed part of a sentiment from the Oh penguin tree stamp set from Mama Elephant onto a scrap piece of blue patterned paper, before die cutting it into a banner using one of the fishtail flag frames dies from My Favorite Things. I added that to my cluster with a little bit of dimension behind it, glued a snowflake on top and finished off the card with three blue enamel dots from Papirdesign.
Kind of a muted color palette for this one. I tried to keep it to a minimum, because there’s a lot going on in that image, and I didn’t want the end result to feel cluttered.
After coloring the image, I used a die from the nested stitched doily set from Cottage Cuts to turn my colored piece into a circle with some nice detailing along the edge. I die cut two more from white cardstock and added them to the back for a little bit more strength and stability.
Using the Detail Ringlet Plate from Simon Says Stamp, I created a white panel with subtle texture. I wanted something that wasn’t too plain while at the same time not being too distracting from the image. I cut down four more pieces of white card stock, added them to the back of the die cut one and adhered it to a card base I made from Berry Sorbet card stock from Papertrey Ink.
A stacked die cut sentiment (die from Papirdesign) and a heat embossed sub sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS were added to the front, and finally a couple of matte gold sequins from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards. Before adhering it to the card, I used a shimmer spray on my colored piece, you can sort of see it in this photo, but it’s a lot more sparkly in person.
I have this throw pillow on my couch that jump started my inspiration. It’s got a nice geometric look, but it’s not too colorful (I prefer a neutral interior to a super busy colorful one, I put all my color into my cards), and the best thing is those blue triangles (it’s a darker blue in real life than in the photo, I need to compensate for bad winter lighting these days). I love blue (as evidenced by the blue throw pillow behind it, the blanket on the left that has lots of blue in it and the light blue walls in the background)!
My first card uses the exact same pattern as the one that’s on the pillow, but in other colors. I used the After Midnight color from My Favorite Things, Tickled Pink and Grout Gray, also from My Favorite Things, along with Berry Sorbet and Stamper’s Select White from Papertrey Ink for the vibrant pink and white, respectively.
I popped my panel of triangles onto a 4 3/4″ square card base using lots of foam tape. On a die cut circle I stamped and gold heat embossed a sentiment from the 
Being told “you are great” is something we all could use at times, right?
My next card features basically the same pattern, but I changed up the colors and extended the pattern to make it a rectangle. I wish I hadn’t cut the top part off, or cut even more off to make the pattern end in a full size or half size rectangle instead of what I ended up with, but it’s the sacrifice I made to make my card an A2 size with 1/4″ border around the triangles.
The card stock colors I chose for this card are Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Lemon Tart, True Black, and Rustic White, all from Papertrey Ink, as well as Blue Breeze from My Favorite Things. The Rustic White is more of a grungy white (is that a thing? It’s not bright white) with dark speckles here and there, it’s really cool. I used the Sweet Hello die from 
Below the die cut hello, I added a sub sentiment from the 
For my last card I decided to go rainbow. No chunky 1/4″ frame, I wanted the colorful triangles to go all the way to the edge in this one. The card measures about 4 1/4 x 5 1/4 (I learned from last card and didn’t want any weird looking shapes). The card stock colors (except for the white, which is Stamper’s Select White from Papertrey Ink) are all from My Favorite Things. They are, from top to bottom, Blue Yonder, After Midnight, Field Day, Limelight, Pineapple, Orange Zest, Red Hot, Razzle Berry, Grape Jelly and Wild Wisteria.
I didn’t want to cover up too much of the background, so I took out my Impact Alphabet die set from My Favorite Things and die cut the letters H and I six times from white card stock. I stacked two of each letter, added two layers of vellum on top, then the remaining four layers of the letters on top for a dimensional look. By having a couple of layers of the letters behind the vellum, it makes the vellum float. I added a few raindrops from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards for a finishing touch.
This one is definitely less dimensional than the other two cards, but the colors and the stacked sentiment still make it pop.
There you have it – 3 same but different cards using one fabulous geometric builder die. Obviously you could create triangles on your own without the die, but the die makes it so much easier and more accurate than I could ever hope to do on my own. And I’m super detail oriented and a bit of a perfectionist, so I’d definitely use the die!
I colored the image using my Copics, die cutting it with a faux stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things for a nice finished loo, before stamping the definition of friend (stamp from Norsk Stempelblad AS) using VersaFine Onyx Black ink.
I added shimmer to the bird and bee using my clear Wink of Stella brush. The sparkle is hard to catch in photos, but in real life it’s very shimmery. I found a scrap piece of patterned paper from Kaisercraft that was already cut down to the perfect size and adhered it to my card base, before adhering the colored panel on top of that. The color of the patterned paper matches the bird nicely. It’s a closer match in real life than I’ve managed to capture in this photo.
I added a couple of sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh and left it at that, this is a very simple card. In this photo you can see a little bit of the sparkle in the bird and the bee.
Super limited color choices for this one. I also used BG71, which is a color I’ve made myself using refill of BG72 and blender solution.
I went with a combo of cool Copic colors and even used the E80s, which I hardly ever use. I cut my colored piece down using a faux stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things.
I used some old scraps of patterned paper to create this card. On my desk I have a container of scraps of patterned paper that I’ve cut down to 4 1/4 x 5 1/2″, making them very convenient to use. The paper I used to cover the entire front of the white card base is from My Mind’s Eye (it’s the same sheet as the one I used for the sentiment banner), the one with the white lines running through it is from Autumn Leaves, from their Manhattan line, which happens to be from 2007. I definitely have some old papers in my stash. The lightest piece is from Kaisercraft. I decided to add dark blue enamel dots from Papirdesign to break a little from the monochromatic patterned paper I had going, and also to reintroduce the blue from the image, even though I really like the grayish teal of the jacket and the patterned paper scraps.
I stamped the sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS using VersaFine Onyx Black ink and die cut it using one of the fishtail flag frames dies from My Favorite Things.
Quick and easy coloring of this one without too many colors. As usual when I color snow, quite a few of the colors were used for the snow alone. I also used BG71 on the jacket, which is a color I’ve made myself.
Papirmølla 