Hi, crafty friends. Winter solstice was yesterday, which means that the days in the Northern hemisphere will gradually get longer from now on. I’m all for longer days, less than 6 hours of daylight each day is depressing, and I long for summer days that seem to have no end. The snow does help make it brighter, but the last couple of days have been foggy and rainy, and the snow has turned to deadly ice as a result. Santa’s little helpers don’t seem to care about that, and with only two days left until Christmas, it’s time to decide who’s naughty or nice.
Cue Chippey and Ralphie from the latest Stacey Yacula release from Purple Onion Designs (A Little Christmas Magic!). They’re making their list, and checking it twice in the Toy Workshop. I made sure to use second generation stamping for the Toy Workshop to make the critters in the foreground stand out. I also used a couple of images from the Holiday Toy Set and turned the North Pole Sign into a poster on the wall, stamping it in Fadeout ink from Inkon3 for a no line look.
I’ve always been a fan of creating blue Christmas cards, but in the past couple of years, green has grown on me, and I think I made more green Christmas cards this year than blue ones. It helps that I’ve found a green Copic combo that I really like.
When all the coloring was done, I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Santa Sentiment Set, also from this year’s holiday release. I used super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger for my embossing, it always embosses well.
Lots of Copics for this one.
I used a white Gelly Roll 05 pen to create the white dots on the deer, and a die from the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things to create the faux stitching on the edges of the panel. By not stamping the entire deer, it creates a dynamic effect of having it walk in from the edge of the card.
I stamped a sentiment from the 
The pink and blue green color combination is definitely not traditional for Christmas, but I kind of like it. What do you think, does it work?
Quite a few Copics for such a simple card.
I wanted to make a peaceful scene for this card. I stamped and masked 
I masked off the background too, before going in with my Copic airbrush system to create a soft winter sunset. I then peeled off the masks, colored the background, then everything else.
I left the red details till the end. I don’t want to run the risk of other colors picking up the red, so by leaving it to the end, I avoid that.
Looks like these reindeer are very patiently waiting for Santa. I wonder where he is? Actually, yesterday on my way to work, I saw a passenger on the bus with a long red Santa hat.
I didn’t want to mess up the sky with a sentiment, and the bottom part of the card is too full for one. I might put one inside, but to finish the card, I merely adhered my scene onto a top fold card base I created from Stormy Sea cardstock from Papertrey Ink. The finished card measures 6 x 5 3/8″, which is a bit of an odd size, but I prefer making my card size fit the scene and not the other way around when I create these full scene cards with Purple Onion images.
Not a whole lot of Copics for this one, actually.
I love creating these scenes with Stacey’s images. It’s a time consuming process, as I create masks for each critter and fussy cut them, but the end result is always worth it.
I stamped Winter and Balsam using Extreme Black ink from My Favorite Things before covering both of them with masks. I then did second generation stamping of Santa’s workshop using Memento Rich Cocoa ink, using first generation for the signage only. I like the softer look of the brown lettering in the background. I stamped the silhouette of Santa’s sleigh using VersaFine Onyx Black ink AFTER I’d colored in the entire scene. This is an ink that stamps very black and very crisp, but it’s a pigment ink and doesn’t play well with Copics, so it’s best to leave it to the end. I stamped the sentiment using Blueberry Sky ink from Papertrey Ink.
I also went back over the “cast iron” of the OPEN sign using a 0.3 cool gray multiliner from Copic and added white dots on the penguin’s hat and scarf using my white Gelly Roll 05.
I sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous, melted the granules from the back of the paper and adhered my finished scene onto a 5 3/4 x 4 1/2″ white card base, making this card slightly larger than the regular A2 size card.
Lots of Copics used for this one.
There are some awesome stamps in the 
This image is 
I have a tall pine tree outside my craft room window. In it, there’s a huge nest that magpies built a few years back. One morning last week, I heard the magpies making more sound than usual. When I looked outside, there was a squirrel that had taken over the nest. It was adding one twig after another to the nest, I guess it had evicted the magpies. After quite some time, one of the magpies tried to get back in, but was chased away by the squirrel. I must admit I was delighted, I’d much rather have a squirrel outside my window than magpies. The squirrel is much cuter, and it’s a lot quieter too.
Back to the card. Once I finished the coloring, I stamped the word Christmas from the Christmas Greeting stamp set that Lili of the Valley released earlier this year using Jalapeño Popper ink from My Favorite Things.
I then die cut the panel using the second larges die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 die set from My Favorite Things and adhered it directly to a card base I created from Jalapeño Popper cardstock, also from My Favorite Things. On a scrap piece of cardstock the same color, I stamped and white heat embossed the words cosy and wishes to complete my sentiment. I put a couple of additional layers of green cardstock behind each word for a little bit of added dimension.
I added a few sequins from the White Orchid Sequin Mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to finish off this very simple card. A little bit of shine is never a bad idea on a simple card.
You’d think an image this simple would have less Copics used, but I tend to go overboard on snow. This time I also went overboard on the fur, even though it might not look like it.
For my final card I’m focusing on the Birthday Wonderland stamp set, and I used both trees, the raccoon and the bear for my card, in addition to one of the sentiments.
I decided to go for a no line look in the background with the trees and used black lines for the two cute critters.
Once my image was stamped and colored I cut it down significantly and mounted it on foam tape to a top fold landscape card base I created from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
There’s something about this bear that reminds me of Yogi. That might actually be the reason I colored his hat green. These two have such character, but the bear’s my favorite, just don’t tell the raccoon.
I used a white Sharpie with an extra fine tip for the dots of snow (is it snow?) on the trees.
Simple, subdued color palette for this card.
I thought this guy from the Smile and Wave stamp set was too cool not to use, so I colored him with my Copics and did some fussy cutting, leaving a white border around the edge. I wanted him to stand out and to make a super simple card.
I created a mask with some 2″ post-It tape by cutting a sloping hill with a craft knife. This is easy to do free hand, but you can use a curved die if you’d like.
I wanted this guy to really stand out against the background and decided to ink blend using distress inks. I used Abandoned Coral, Worn Lipstick, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed and Scattered Straw for the sky. The yellow and orange tones pick up the colors from his belly, beak and feet and really stand out against the blue of his hat. For the ground I used a little bit of Tumbled Glass Distress Ink near the horizon, fading into white near the bottom.
I sprinkled on Chunky White embossing enamel to the background, making sure no granules covered my stamped sentiment before melting the granules from the back. I mounted the panel onto the white top fold card base using foam tape for dimension.
I mounted the penguin onto foam tape and used some clear iridescent crystals from the Crystal Collection (Glass) from Little Thing from Lucy’s Cards to finish off this very simple card.
Simple color palette.
I love teal for Christmas cards. I actually love teal for anything, but it’s the perfect color to pair with the dreaded traditional red. I’m not a fan of complementary colors, so red and green don’t really work for me, but red and teal totally do. As does red and light blue, or red and grey, but that’s pretty much my entire list for what goes with red at Christmas. I’m weird, I know.
Once my coloring was done I used the Notebook Edge die from My Favorite Things to die cut from the left hand side of the panel. Below the image, I stamped a sentiment from the Holiday Messages stamp set from Mama Elephant using Hawaiian Shores Ink from Papertrey Ink.
I thought about adding some sort of embellishment to the card, but in the end, I decided to keep it simple.
Not a whole heap of Copics used for this one.
Halloween isn’t really a big thing in Norway, but this image was so cute I just couldn’t resist. I colored up the ground, pumpkins and leaves before asking my “twin” Liz for a color suggestion for the actual dragon, thinking in my mind “please don’t say purple”. What did she choose? It was inevitable, I knew she’d say purple, she even said which purples to use. I actually think he’s cute in purple, and I don’t think I’ve colored one of Lee’s dragons purple before, so I guess it was about time.
Once I finished coloring, I embraced the purple, stamping the Boo! sentiment from the Itty Bitty Boos stamp set from My Favorite Things using Deep Iris ink from Altenew. I then die cut the largest frame in the Scallop Frames die set from Pretty Pink Posh from Amethyst Allure cardstock from Papertrey Ink, adding two additional white die cuts behind it for dimension.
The outside dimensions of the die cut frame are 4 x 5″, so I cut 1/4″ off the height of my card base, making it 4 1/4 x 5 1/4″ instead of the normal A2 size to get an even white border on the outside of it.
The sentiment is tiny, and to draw the eye to it I decided to add a couple of gems. These are from the Meraki Sparkle Red Illusion jar. They’re color changing glass rhinestones, and this color was perfect for this card.
If you look at the various photos in this post, you’ll see that these rhinestones appear to have different colors depending on how the light hits them, it’s a really cool effect. In this photo, you can also see the dimension added by using stacked die cuts.
Fairly simple color palette for this card. It was a pretty quick image to color too!
I created a very simple scene for this card, stamping the snowman in Fadeout ink from Inkon3 before adding a mask, then stamping the 
Every once in a while, I break out my airbrush system. I actually keep it out on my desk, but I have a big desk and don’t usually sit close to it. I love the airbrush system, it’s such an awesome way to get a layer of color quickly. Coloring an entire nighttime sky with Copics takes a while, airbrushing it is faster. Use colors that are darker than what you think you want, and make sure there’s enough ink in the marker before starting. I used B99 and B97 for this sky, and it’s wonderfully dark and the perfect backdrop for the lighter colors of the snowy scene in front.
Once I finished the airbrushing, I carefully removed the masks and did no line coloring of the rest of the scene. At this point, I’ve colored snow so often, I can do it in my sleep. This snowman is pretty easy to color too, most of the areas are pretty big surfaces, so it’s a very forgiving image.
After I finished my coloring, I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment in the sky. The sentiment is actually from the Scripty Xmas stamp set from Mama Elephant, I kind of forgot for a second that I was creating a Purple Onion card, I was a little lost in a creative zone. After heat embossing the sentiment, I sprinkled on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous to create my super snowy scene, making sure to remove any granules that landed on top of the embossed letters before melting the granules from the back.
I trimmed 1/8″ off each side of my scene and adhered it to a white card base I created from white cardstock from Papertrey Ink, deciding not to add any embellishments. I figured there was enough going on already with all the snow.
As usual – lots of colors used for the snow. The two blues at the very bottom after the break are the colors I used for the airbrushed sky.
Papirmølla 