Hi, everyone! I’ve got another wintery birthday card to share today, featuring this adorable mouse Holly from Purple Onion Designs. Isn’t she the cutest? My favorite part is actually her socks, such a genius idea from Stacey to put socks on her feet. It’s all in the details.
My sister’s birthday’s in a few weeks, and I thought this was the perfect card for her. She used to have the nickname “musa” (the mouse) when we were kids. Our cousin, a few months younger, was also quite a bit bigger, earning her the nickname “rotta” (the rat). Of the two, I think my sister got the better nickname.
This card was a bit of an evolution, and is not what I’d call my typical style After I’d colored the image, I had the idea to use this Framed Greetings Cover-Up die from My Favorite Things, but when it was time to actually create the card, I was out of ideas. I die cut the cover frame from Blueberry card stock from My Favorite Things, and was still stuck. Finding the Winter Days Confetti mix from Pretty Pink Posh in my stash led me to the shaker card idea, which, in turn, led me to the Summer Splash card base to match the confetti. An idea was born.
I die cut the frame five more times, cutting away the interior pieces and stacking the frames to form the walls of my shaker. The frame is quite thin, so I didn’t trust myself enough with a ruler and a craft knife to create five identical frames. Die cutting seemed safer and quicker. I’ve kept all the pieces and am planning on using them in the future for a card or two.
Once everything was cut, I was stuck again. I was originally going to make this a portrait oriented card, they’re definitely my “go to”, but I struggled with finding a sentiment. I realized that if I rotated my card to be a landscape card, the “Happy birthday” letters from the Slimline Scallop Frame die set from Simon Says Stamp would fit the width of the card perfectly. I die cut two layers from white card stock, and one layer from X-Press It that I’d colored with the same colors I used for the ears of the mouse. The pink pops against the teal and blue in the background.
There’s quite a bit of dimension in this. Card base, five layers of walls for the shaker, a piece of acetate, die cut cover frame on top, then three layers of letters. Dimension is life!
Limited color palette with such a small image.
I colored up the image with my Copics. Nothing unusual about that, but these blues are brighter than the ones I normally use. The colored panel was too narrow to fill the width of a regular card, so I decided to put a frame around it. I used one of the wood frame nested dies from Hero Arts to create my frame from Classic Kraft card stock from Papertrey Ink, and built up layers by adding a few more frames behind the top one. I created a card bas from Lush Lagoon card stock from Papertrey Ink, and used the By the numbers impression, also from PTI, to create a debossed look to the card base. There’s quite a bit of blue showing outside the frame, so I wanted a little bit of texture there.
Using Limelight card stock from My Favorite Things, I die cut the number (from the By the numbers die set from Papertrey Ink) four times and stacked them for a dimensional look. I adhered the number to the frame using liquid glue, and glued a white heat embossed black sentiment strip on top, with two more layers of black card stock behind that, for even more dimension.
I added a bunch of green enamel dots from Papirdesign, and rummaged through my old patterned paper for one I could make an envelope from. I struck gold with this green one from Pion Design from 2010. I don’t use a lot of patterned paper anymore (at least not big pieces), but I can’t exactly throw it away, either, so I figure it’s perfect to create envelopes from. This way, they get used!
Super bright colors. Well, except for all the browns. I actually used five colors for his sheriff’s badge before I ended up with a color I liked.
My card measures 3 1/2 x 6 1/2″. I printed the image onto X-Press It blending card and colored it with my Copics. I was planning on doing a split complementary color scheme, but went with an analogous in the end, which is never a bad idea, in my opinion. I adhered the colored panel onto a card base I made from Soft Stone card stock from Papertrey Ink, adding two layers of cardstock behind the image for added dimension.
It’s no secret that I love enamel dots, and the Cool Summer Night enamel dots from Altenew were the *perfect* color to match my penguin. Since I didn’t have any envelopes in the right size for this card, I created my own using patterned paper from Papirdesign and my envelope punch board from WRMK.
I love this color palette. In addition to these colors, I also used BG71, which is a color I’ve created myself.
Meet Grace. She comes in seven different poses, and each pose comes in a regular black lined version, and a more sketchy pencil style version, which is what I used for my card. I thought the sketchy look would be amazing with watercolor, but watercolor doesn’t play well with the ink in my printer, so I’ve totally cheated and used Copics. Well, Copic refills on watercolor paper, to be exact. Works like a charm and you get soft results, it’s fast to do and you don’t need a lot of colors. And for a sketchy style image like this, it doesn’t even matter if you go outside the lines a bit, it adds to that watercolor feel. I used this technique years ago (blog post 
I wanted all the focus to be on the image, and used the Fine Frames Cover die with some patterned paper from Papirdesign in a soft, matching purple, adding dimension behind every other frame (the wider ones), while gluing the others straight onto the card base.
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Statement Flowers stamp set from Altenew, before adding a few sequins from the White Orchid Sequin Mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
Very limited color palette. I put a drop or two of color onto my glass work surface and picked up the color with a watercolor brush filled with blender solution instead of water. I have a watercolor brush just for blender solution.
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 
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.
Papirmølla 