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 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!
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.
I colored up these 
I’m usually good at using scraps of patterned paper and rarely use a brand new sheet. Today was the day, though. I thought this patterned paper from the I wish collection from Maja Design went really well with my coloring, and I didn’t have a single scrap of this particular paper. Using the same die that I used on the white panel, I die cut my patterned paper before cutting up my die cut into pieces I could use on my card. I added two layers of cardstock behind both pieces and glued them to my card. I now have a continuous stitched border, even though some of it is my colored panel and some is patterned paper. I love little details like that. I die cut three of the god jul die from Papirdesign from red cardstock and glued them together for a stacked look. I glued my die cut to the center of the wide patterned paper before adding a sub sentiment. The sub sentiment is from Norsk Stempelblad AS, white heat embossed on the same color red cardstock and cut down to a strip, with two additional pieces of cardstock behind it to make it flush with the die cut. I added three snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to the patterned paper, and my card was finished.
Not a whole lot of colors for this one. Soft colors too (except for the darkest green, I wanted a little bit of contrast there), which is rare for me.
I’ve made what looks like a pretty plain box for my Innovation Master entry this year. It measures 3 7/8 x 3 7/8″, and it’s 1 3/8″ deep. I like creating these three dimensional projects, but I prefer not having to use any specialty dies, so this project is made by scoring and folding what essentially starts out as rectangular pieces of cardstock. I’ve only used one die for this entire project, and it’s the smallest of the dies in the Fishtail Flag Frames die set to die cut the two banners that the cute little bird is sitting on.
When you pull on the little handle at the end, you reveal a scene of more cute critters on the inside. I’ve used two stamp sets for this project. The sentiment and the stamped snowflakes are from the Flurry of Love stamp set that was released last year, all the colored critters are from the Christmas Carols stamp set that was part of this year’s September release. The snowflakes stamped in light blue on the “lid” and the ones heat embossed in white are the same ones stamped repeatedly to create backgrounds.
The outer casing splits open and works as an easel of sorts to display this little scene on the inside. I stamped and colored all these critters with Copics, before fussy cutting them right up against the black stamped lines.
I ink blended blue inks on the background to get a gradient of color, going from Blue Beyond at the top where it’s the darkest, then Cornflower in the middle and Blue Yonder at the bottom. The critters are more or less hiding the gradient, but it’s more visible in the die cut banner on the lid, where it goes from dark blue on the far left, to a lighter blue on the right.
I cut away the center of the lantern and replaced it with acetate for it to be see through. I used a yellow Copic on the back of the acetate, and you can see the dark blue background and the white snowflakes through it. I added strips of acetate on the back of the critters to make a dimensional scene where the different animals are on different levels. The lamppost is at the very back, 1/4″ from the back, then the cow and sheep are both at 3/8″ from the back, the pig at 1/2″ and finally the goat at 7/8″. I’ve glued the acetate strips to the back of the background for them to be as hidden as I could. I only created small slits for the acetate to go through, you can spot a few of them behind the goat and the lamppost in this photo. I have a slit towards the top of each of the critters as well as one closer to the bottom, so they’ve all got two anchor points. The lamppost has three; one at the base and one at the top and the bottom of the actual lantern.
As you can see, the drawer can be pulled out completely from the casing. I stamped the cobblestone image that comes in the Christmas Carols stamp set repeatedly on a piece of X-Press It blending card and colored it in, creating a ground for these critters to stand on. Here you also see the different levels of the animals better. This cobblestone image is perfect for repeat stamping, and it looks like one big stamp instead of a smaller one stamped four times. I love that you can create this effect with this stamp, because of how brilliantly it’s designed.
I needed to place the critters fairly high up in this drawer to prevent them from being hidden behind the lid of the casing that covers it when it’s all standing up on display, so I decided to create a box within the drawer for a little surprise. It was just big enough for a small Snickers bar to fit.
I didn’t use a whole lot of Copics for this, in spite of coloring so many images.
Using a couple of dies in a set of nesting squares from Lifestyle Crafts, I created a frame to go around my image. I taped the two squares together, so I could run them through my die cutting machine several times and be sure that the size of the frame would be the same with each pass through the machine. I die cut 8 of these frames, I wanted a very dimensional shaker card. I stacked 7 of them, glued them to my colored piece, added lots of sequins from the Icicle sequin mix from Hero Arts and glued the last die cut frame on top.
That’s when I ran into trouble. I wasn’t able to glue the frame onto the acetate so that it lined up with the others. I’d adhered it with score tape, so there was no way to remove it without ruining it. My solution was to die cut a new, larger frame with a slightly smaller window. I went one die larger for the outside and one die smaller for the inside for this frame, and adhered it directly onto the ones that were already there. It was a happy accident, because I’m really happy with the chunkier frame.
I added the shaker to a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2″ card base I created from Wild Cherry cardstock from My Favorite Things, before stamping and white heat embossing a se23ntiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS to a separate piece of the same color cardstock, which I then die cut using a die from the Gemini Extra Deep Loving Tags die set from Crafter’s Companion. I adhered it directly to the inside top right corner of my shaker frame, and my card was finished.
Not a whole lot of colors for this card, in spite of all those stripes on the snowmen’s accessories.
I printed my image with gray lines so I could do no line coloring. Whenever I do this, I like keeping facial features black or a dark brown, so I don’t have to free hand draw them back in once I’m done coloring. It’s a neat little trick.
I die cut my colored panel using the largest die in the A2 Double Stitched Rectangle STAX die set from My Favorite Things and adhered it directly onto a cardbase I created from Amarena Cherry cardstock, also from My Favorite Things.
I die cut the word wishes five times from my red cardstock using a die from Mama Elephant. I stacked the words for a dimensional look and also stamped and white heat embossed the words Sweet and Christmas onto separate pieces of the same color cardstock. The stamped words are from two separate sentiments from the Bitty Bears stamp set from My Favorite Things. I love using pieces of sentiments from stamp sets to create new sentiments, it makes them more versatile.
I felt like I had to add a little something to this, so I pulled out my White Orchid Sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards and added them in a visual triangle on my card. This mix is one of my favorites, it’s right up there with the Sparkling clear mix from Pretty Pink Posh.
I don’t often create red Christmas cards, but when I can pair that red with a tealy blue, a light blue or a gray, I can make red work. I printed and colored the image onto a 3 1/4 x 6 1/4″ panel of X-Press It blending card, before sprinkling on lots of chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous to make my scene extra snowy.
The patterned papers are all die cut from the 6×6″ Home for the Holidays paper stack from Maja Design. I love their patterns and their colors, and the colors in this stack are SO good, I couldn’t resist.
Mini slimline cards are fun to make. I really should make my envelopes as I go, but I’m not very consistent with that, I’m afraid, and will have lots of envelopes to create once we get a little closer to Christmas (we’ve got less than 100 days to go, by the way).
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Itty Bitty Holiday stamp set from My Favorite Things onto a scrap piece of patterned paper from that stack from Maja Design, and die cut that with the coordinating Itty Bitty Strips die.
I added a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and the entire panel is adhered onto a card base I made from Wild Cherry cardstock from My Favorite Things. I love their cardstock!
As usual, I finish with my colors. Not a whole lot for this image.
These badgers are the 
I adhered my colored panel to a top fold card I made from Bright Buttercup cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I added a strip of that same cardstock below my image and left tons of white space. I printed a sentiment from the 
Simple color palette, of course with a pop of yellow in there.
Papirmølla 