Hi, crafty friends. I have a fun card to share today, featuring Happy Mail from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by Pei. This image is from this year’s Season’s Greetings collection from Pei. I love her illustration style, and whenever there’s a penguin, I’m sold. Speaking of sold, the annual holiday sale is underway at Purple Onion Designs. Pretty much everything (with a few exceptions) is at 25 % off. The offer ends this Sunday (December 8th, 2024), so there’s plenty of time to browse the Purple Onion website and pick up favorites!
I suggest you put this image in your cart, it’s so awesome. I colored it with my Copics, adding an actual no line horizon behind my critters to complete the wintry scene, before using a die from the Nesting Postage Stamps infinity die set from Hero Arts to turn it into a huge postage stamp. I then used the Vintage Holiday Postmark Set along with the wavy lines from the Vintage PostCARD set to add to the postage feel. I used Lazy Day ink from My Favorite Things, which matches the blue in my coloring pretty nicely.
I created a top fold card base from Pure Poppy cardstock from Papertrey Ink, mounted my large postage stamp using lots of foam tape and adhered a few Snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to finish.
I actually used red markers for red this time, with a little bit of B14 where I wanted it to be darker than R29 can create on its own. I usually use earth tones for red, this was a fun change.
I took a quick look at the colors I’ve focused on recently to try to choose something different and opted for this blue green combo. I colored the image with Copics and added a horizon in the distance with a few trees scattered about.
I made sure not to add to many trees so there would be room for the sentiment, which I stamped in Oceanside ink from Concord & 9th. The sentiment itself is from the Snøstorm stamp set from byCino. I die cut my panel using the lartest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangle STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things, before I sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous. I made sure that none of the granules covered the sentiment or the eyes of the polar bears before melting the powder from the back.
I adhered my panel to a card base I’d covered with a quarter sheet of Oceanside cardstock from Concord & 9th. This is actually a side fold card. I usually make top fold cards, but I didn’t have any landscape oriented card bases on hand and didn’t feel like breaking open a new pack of cardstock. Long live lazy crafting, right?
Very cool color palette for this one.
I started with a panel of white cardstock (Stamper’s Select White from Papertrey Ink) that I cut down slightly from a quarter sheet. I used a couple of dies from Papirdesign to do a dry emboss on my cardstock. I covered a white top fold card base with a quarter sheet of Harbor cardstock from Concord & 9th and layered my white dry embossed panel on top.
I die cut the banner pieces in the Joyful Season die set from Concord & 9th from Harbor and Powder cardstock, before stamping a sentiment from the Merry Greetings builder stamp set from Kristina Werner onto the banner pieces using Harbor ink. I assembled the banner and added a few layers of cardstock behind it for dimension. I die cut a tree and a snowflake from the same dies that I used for my dry emboss background, both from Powder cardstock. I stacked two of each and glued them on top of its actual position in the embossed background, before finishing off with Opal gems from Spellbinders. Very simple.
I printed the image onto X-Press It blending card and colored it with my Copics, going for a couple of different purple combos – one dark for the snowman’s hat and scarf, another for the cute little bird. I chose a deep pink combo for the present and the bird’s accessories to bring in another color. I die cut my panel using a rectangle die from Waffle Flower, then went in with a snowflake stencil from Ciao Bella and some Lilac ink from Concord & 9th. I then added VersaMark on top and sprinkled on Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder from JudiKins to turn the snowflakes sparkly once the powder melted.
I stamped a sentiment from the Julehilsen stamp set from byCino using Autumn Rose ink from Papertrey Ink. The sentiment translates to “Express delivery from the North Pole” and was the perfect size for my chosen placement. I adhered a quarter sheet of Autumn Rose cardstock from Papertrey Ink onto a white card base and mounted the colored panel in the center, before finishing off with sequins and raindrops from the She’s So Lovely mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
Lots of purple. I can do hard things (using purple is HARD).
I colored my cutie with Copics and made sure to color enough on the sky and the ground beneath him so I could die cut my panel with a circle die. I used a black glaze pen to get some shine into his eyes, and once the black was dry, I added a dot of white Gelly Roll 05. I die cut a white ornament using the Snowflakes and Ornament die set from Hero Arts, and glued my colored panel on top, before working on the rest of the card.
For my background, I used the Magic Snow Cover die from Mama Elephant to die cut from Powder cardstock from Concord & 9th. I adhered that to a top fold white card base and glued my ornament in the center with a couple of layers of cardstock behind it for a little bit of dimension. I die cut a sentiment from white cardstock using the Jolly Holiday Greetings die set from Concord & 9th. I die cut the back from Champagne cardstock, also from Concord & 9th and added the complete sentiment to my card with a little dimension behind it, before finishing off with a die cut bow in the same cardstock color, die cut using the Gift Bows die set from Kristina Werner.
Simple palette for this one.
I printed the image onto X-Press It blending card and colored it with my Copics, creating a soft winter sunset behind the cute penguins. From white cardstock (Stamper’s Select White from Papertrey Ink), I die cut a frame using the Winter Wonderland window die from Lawn Fawn and adhered it to my colored piece.
I used the Magic Snow Cover die from Mama Elephant to create texture and interest to a piece of Cornflower cardstock from My Favorite Things, which I adhered to my top fold card base. I added some dimension behind my winter wonderland window and adhered it in the center of the card. I stamped a sentiment from the Holiday messages stamp set from Mama Elephant onto Nectar cardstock from Concord & 9th using Grapefruit ink, also from Concord & 9th, cut it down to a strip and added it to my frame with a couple of extra layers of cardstock behind it for dimension, before finishing off with sequins from the Ivory Sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
I used a fairly limited color palette for this card. I also used B20, which is a color I’ve created myself.
I love coloring this image in noline versions. I usually print with his eyes and eyebrows in a dark brown and the rest of him in a super light grey. I kept the snow on the ground around him this time, and cut away the part of the panel that above my imagined horizon line. I created stars in the sky by using solar paste from Simon Hurley (in the golden hour color) through the Falling stars stencil from Simon Says Stamp onto the front of an A2 card base I created from After midnight cardstock from My Favorite Things.
Once the stars were dry, I adhered my panel with my snowman, adding die cut trees a little bit below the horizon line. I created the trees by coloring a scrap piece of X-Press It using the same green markers I used for the image, before die cutting them using the Silhouette Snow Trees die set from Mama Elephant. I finished off the trees with some liquid glue and Rock Candy distress glitter for a sparkly, snowy look. For a sentiment I die cut the words holly jolly from the Jolly Holiday greeting die set from Concord & 9th five times from white cardstock and adhered them all together for a stacked, dimensional look and completed the greetings with some small words from the Holiday messages stamp set from Mama Elephant that I stamped in Obsidian ink from Altenew onto pieces of cardstock I colored with the lightest of the green markers I used for the snowman and the trees.
Fairly simple color palette for this one, although I don’t think I’ll ever have a limited color palette for snow, I always choose a lot of colors to create snow.
Meet 
Once everything was colored in, I stamped Santa’s Silhouette using Obsidian ink from Altenew. This is a pigment ink, which doesn’t really play well with Copics, so it’s best to use it once the coloring’s complete. I then stamped a sentiment from the Home for the Holidays sentiment set using Jalapeño Popper ink from My Favorite Things, before I sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous, which I melted from the back for a textured snow look. I adhered my panel to a top fold card base and my card was complete.
I used a lot of Copics for this scene. A lot.
I rummaged through my scraps of patterned paper and found these from Maja Design. Their patterned papers coordinate really well, even across collections years apart. In fact, I’ve used three different collections on this card. The Happy Christmas collection from 2021, the Vintage Winter collection from 2011 and the Gammaldags Jul collection, which is even older, but I’m not sure what year it’s from (it was before they started printing the year on the strips at the bottom of their patterned papers). I used Die 240 from Kort & Godt to cut the patterned paper. This ia a die set with these fish tail banners of different sizes. I then arranged them how I wanted them and die cut them all at once using a stitched rectangle die (Die 182 from Kort & Godt) to give them all that faux stitch line at the top. I used the same rectangle die to cut a piece of white cardstock which I adhered to my card base with another layer behind it for a tiny bit of dimension.
I mounted the banners in layers using foam tape, and die cut the sentiment from gold glitter cardstock. I stacked a few white ones behind it for dimension (I think I used four layers in addition to the gold glitter cardstock) and also die cut the shadow from white. I added dimension behind it and adhered it on top of the banners to finish the card.
I started by die cutting half circles into the sides of a panel of Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, before running it through my die cutting machine with an old Sizzix embossing folder to create some texture. I adhered my panel to my card base and started working on the rest of the card.
I fussy cut the tree from MA1030, put lots of foam tape on the back and adhered it in the center of the card, making sure that the presents sort of lined up with the notches I’d created. I then pulled a piece of cotton string through the holes of a button that says Merry Christmas, wrapped the string around the card using the notches to keep it in place and tied a knot behind the button. Super simple, right?
Papirmølla 