Hi, crafty friends! Today’s a massive day over at Purple Onion Designs, it’s release day for three brand new holiday/winter collections; one from Stacey Yacula and two from Shari Bresciani. I’ve made a lot of cards with these wonderful images, and I have even more colored and planned for future projects.
Shari’s images are funny, whimsical and quirky, and they make for very playful cards. For this card I colored up Darla the deer, as well as Feathers & Birdhouse (these two come together). After coloring, I masked off both Darla and the birdhouse before stamping the Pine Tree Farm from an older collection from Stacey Yacula using fadeout ink from Inkon3 for a soft, no line look. I then masked the trees and airbrushed a soft winter sunset.
Once my sunset was in place, I colored the trees. I usually like a bit of contrast in the coloring, but for this one I really restrained myself. It’s a background element, and I didn’t want it to take any attention away from the foreground with the new stamps, so I only used BG93 and BG90 for the green, and E71 and E70 for the tree trunks.
Using the Madison Avenue die set from Mama Elephant, I die cut a frame three times from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink. To one of the cardstock pieces, I added Stick It adhesive before die cutting. I glued the three frames together, putting the one with the adhesive sheet at the top of the stack. I removed the backer sheet and sprinkled on Rock Candy distress glitter, before putting the backer sheet back over the top and burnished with a bone folder to make the glitter really stick to the adhesive and not fall off.
I trimmed down the scene slightly to make it fit inside my frame, and adhered both the scene and the stacked die cut frame onto a top fold card base I created from more of that Stamper’s Select White cardstock. It’s my favorite white cardstock, I still haven’t been able to find a good quality cardstock that’s whiter than this.
I fussy cut Feathers the bird leaving a small white trim and glued him down to the frame using liquid glue. His head’s sticking out into the scene, so I put a small piece of foam tape behind it. I also stamped a speech bubble from the Holiday Blurbs I stamp set using Wild Cherry ink from My Favorite Things, fussy cut and mounted it on foam tape to my scene. I added dots of black to the eyes of my critters using a Glaze pen, and added Glossy Accents to the deer’s nose, and my card was finished.
I did my best to limit the amount of Copics I used for this card. The five marker colors that come after the gap on the bottom row are the ones I used to airbrush the sky.
For a limited time (through November 12th), these collections can be purchased as bundles at a 30% discount from the regular price.
I’ll Be Home For The Holidays (Stacey Yacula) – 21 stamps & The Home For the Holidays Stamp Set – $128.00
Snow Much Fun (Shari Bresciani) – 19 stamps & the Snow Much Fun Sentiment Set – $90.00
It’s Snowing Cats & Dogs (Shari Bresciani) – 16 stamps & Furry Friends Sentiment Set – $82.00
There are two smaller bundles from the It’s Snowing Cats & Dogs collection for those who would just like either the dog or cat stamps:
It’s Snowing Dogs (Shari Bresciani) – 8 Dog stamps, Dog House & Christmas Tree – $46.00
It’s Snowing Cats (Shari Bresciani) – 6 Cat stamps & Christmas Tree -$33.00
I colored the gnome with Copics, before die cutting it using a die in the Classic Snow Globe die set from My Favorite Things. I die cut the base from patterned paper from Maja Design, and matted everything on a circle die cut I created from another scrap of Maja Design paper. Using a couple of different stamp sets from Norsk Stempelblad AS, I stamped the sentiments using Jalapeño Popper ink from My Favorite Things.
On the back I stamped another Norsk Stempelblad AS stamp using Jalapeño Popper ink onto another die cut circle I created from Maja Design patterned paper. I used three different Christmas collections from Maja Design for this small gift tag. I love their older patterned paper collections. The colors often match between collections, which makes mixing them a breeze.
In this stamp set there are five mice in different poses, there’s a giant piece of cake, a few accessories and some sentiments. I decided to focus on the mouse with the birthday candle for my card today. I usually color larger images, but these small ones from Streamside Studios are perfect for playing with different layouts for my cards.
I colored the mouse very simply with my Copics, and did some fussy cutting, leaving a white border around the image. I usually prefer cutting right up to the lines, but with the tail and the wick on the candle being thin, single lines, that wasn’t going to happen.
I created a top fold landscape cardbase from Ripe Raspberry cardstock from My Favorite Things and used the Crystal Distortion embossing folder from Simon Says Stamp on a piece of Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink to create a textured background for all my elements to sit on.
I die cut the Celebrate die from My Favorite Things four times from the same Ripe Raspberry cardstock that I used for the cardbase, and stacked them for a dimensional look. I stamped a sentiment from the Itty Bitty Birthday set from My Favorite Things using Smokey Shadow ink from Papertrey Ink onto a piece of Cement Gray cardstock from My Favorite Things and trimmed it down to a strip that I glued to my die cut word.
I popped up the mouse using foam tape, and added sequins from the Sparkling Clear sequin mix from Pretty Pink Posh to finish my card. Super simple.
Not a lot of Copics for this tiny image.
I wasn’t sure initially what colors to use on this, so I asked a friend for suggestions. 
She suggested purple. She knows I don’t color a lot with purple. It’s not that I don’t like purple, I think purple’s pretty, it’s just soooo hard to photograph well, so I tend to avoid it for that reason. This time I didn’t, though. I listened to her and chose a V combo with my Copics I thought worked well.
Once my coloring was complete, I die cut the Stitched Snowflake Circle Frame from Memory Box five times from white cardstock. I wanted to make a shaker card, and I find that stacking layers works better than foam tape. I eventually ditched my shaker idea, but still kept my stacked die cut window for a dimensional frame. I did layering of cardstock to the outside of the frame too, making the entire white front panel flush. I added more stitching detail using the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things and adhered all my layers onto a card base I created from Winter Wisteria cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
For my sentiment I die cut the wishes die from Mama Elephant twice from the same purple cardstock I used for my base, before stamping a sentiment from the 
Very muted color palette for this one, but wintery cards tend to be somewhat muted.
I love 
I stamped Flannel using Extreme Black ink from My Favorite Things onto X-Press It blending card. It’s my favorite cardstock for coloring. It’s super bright white and the Copics blend very well on it. It’s no surprise, though, the paper is made especially for Copic use.
I die cut the panel using the largest of the dies in the Wonky Stitched Rectangles STAX set from My Favorite Things, which is one of the many things I purchased with the $250 gift card I won in this year’s Superstar contest. I love my MFT faux stitch dies, and this wonky one is a fun change from my regular faux stitched rectangles. I sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and melted the granules from the back of the cardstock, before adhering it to an A2 card base I created from Green Parakeet cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
Using the Very Merry and Bright die from My Favorite Things, I die cut the letters for the word Merry five times from the same green cardstock that I used for the card base. I glued them together for a stacked, dimensional look and adhered them to my colored panel using liquid glue. Onto a small strip of Cocoa Bean cardstock from Papertrey Ink, I stamped and white heat embossed part of a sentiment from the 
To finish off the card I added a few Snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards for a little bit of extra interest and dimension. I love these tiny clay snowflakes, I use them all the time.
Simple color palette. That bright green really is fun!
I bought a 36 tube set of Mijello Mission Gold watercolors last September, and they’ve been sitting in their palette scaring me, but I’ve recently started dabbling a little bit. Images like this with big open areas are great for practice, and this is my third proper watercolor piece. Yes, I’m keeping track, haha. The previous two attempts were both noline. One was a background, and the other a digital stamp. My printer ink doesn’t play well (or at all, really) with water, so I had to opt for the noline look to prevent visible bleeding. I dove right into the deep end, hoping I could pull it off.
I stamped the image onto Fabriano Artistico Extra White watercolor paper using VersaFine Onyx Black ink. I’ve created a birthday card with these two once before (blog post 
For my last card with this image, I used my Copic BV20 series for a purply gray elephant. This time, I went for a bluer version to get a nice contrast. I actually decided to mute my pink a little before painting with it. The Bright Opera color from Mijello is a super bright pink, and I added a tiny bit of Hooker’s Green to dull it a little, it was just too bright a pink straight from the palette for what I wanted.
Once I’d painted my scene, I went back over with a black pen to trace the lines of the image. I would have restamped if I could, but I stamped the image weeks before I painted it and removed the stamp from my MISTI in the meantime. Black pen to the rescue. I just wanted crisp black lines. I stamped a sentiment from the stamp set using VersaFine Onyx Black ink and heat embossed that using clear embossing powder.
I cut down my colored panel slightly and adhered it to an A7 top fold card base I created from two pieces of Poppin’ Pink cardstock from Papertrey Ink. To finish the card I adhered sequins, beads, confetti and other various little bits from the Sweet Shop mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. I don’t usually put this many sequins on my cards and scatter them like this, but I wanted to really keep the party vibe from these two going across the entire card front.
In the stamp set, there are three fairies, a few ghosts, an adorable bat (yes, it’s adorable) and various accessories. Among them are different candies. I created a panel of these candies, and colored them in with my Copics using very Halloween-y colors. That was last year.
I wasn’t sure what to do with my colored background, but I didn’t want to cover too much of it, and opted for a very simple design. Using the largest die from the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things, I turned my colored piece into a panel with a nice faux stitched edge. I love these faux stitch dies from MFT and use them for nearly every card I make. It adds such a wonderful detail. It’s all in the details, to paraphrase a famous German architect.
I adhered my die cut panel onto a card base I created from Royal Velvet cardstock from Papertrey Ink. It’s a deep purple that goes well with the coloring.
I created the remainder of my sentiment in Photoshop and printed it, cut it down to two strips and added them on top of the letters with an extra strip of black cardstock behind for a little added dimension and stability. I added three enamel dots from Papirdesign (yellow and orange) and Altenew (purple) to finish my card.
Not a lot of colors for this one, and yet they’re very Halloween-y.
I wanted a really dark, intense moon to illuminate and cast shadows in my scene. Once I’d placed all the different images where I wanted them in Photoshop, I drew a large circle to create the edges of my moon. I set the opacity very low, so I could use it as a guide when I did the actual coloring to get a perfect circle and not have any black lines around the edges.
My original plan when I colored this scene (which was actually last year) was to create a shaker card where the tombstone was the actual shaker recessed into the card, while everything else was popped up. Plans change, though, and when I sat down to actually make the card I decided to go for a very simple approach. I glued my colored panel onto a card base made from Sour Apple cardstock from My Favorite Things, and that was it. No embellishments, no nothing. Some people might call this a one layer card, but to me, a one layer card is one where everything is done on the card base. This is adhered to the card base, so I wouldn’t technically call it a one layer card. What do you think? One layer or not? What’s your definition of a one layer card?
Not a whole lot of Copics, given the fact that the entire front panel is colored in.
This cute image is called 
I actually turned this into a trifold card. I used the largest of the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 dies from My Favorite Things, as well as the Square Peek-a-Boo Window die to die cut from this panel of Lazy Day cardstock, also from My Favorite Things.
When you open the card, the rest of the image is revealed, and that cute snowman isn’t alone. He has a little friend giving him a present. Below the image I stamped a sentiment from the Holiday Messages stamp set from Mama Elephant using Lazy Day ink from My Favorite Things. This panel is also die cut using that die from the Stitched Rectangles STAX set from MFT. I love these faux stitch rectangle dies, they’re my most used dies by far. I sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and heated the panel from the back to melt the granules before adhering it to my card. This opens up to reveal ample space to write a personal message to the recipient.
Papirmølla 