Hi, crafty friends. I’m sharing another holiday card today, this time featuring Penguin Photo Strip from Lili of the Valley. It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for penguins, and these are fun and playful. I love the idea of the photo strip, but I decided to shake it up and not make it a strip.
I started by coloring the images with Copics. They each come with a frame, but I wanted this postage stamp look, so I cut my images on the inside of the frames.
I wanted some interest in the background, and the Sparkling Snow embossing folder from Simon Hurley/Spellbinders is amazing! It creates proper six pointed snowflakes and gives such a cool texture, I want to use it on everything. I used it with a panel of Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things. It’s one of my favorite light blue colors, I may need to hoard it since MFT went out of business. I trimmed my panel down, matted it with a panel of Cranberry cardstock from Concord & 9th and adhered both to a top fold white card base I covered with an A2 panel of X-Press It blending card, just so that my whites would match.
I adhered each of my colored images onto Cranberry cardstock for a nice framed look, then adhered my matted images to postage stamps I die cut with the Postage Collage die from Waffle Flower.
I mounted each of my postage stamps using foam squares, adding the first two straight before making sure the last two were wonky. I like that both the images and their placement tell a story about what happened in that photo booth, everything going perfectly at the start, followed by slight chaos. To finish off the card, I added black glaze to the eyes for some shine and a tiny bit of dimension, as well as snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
Not a whole heap of colors used for these.
The Yuletide Lane bundle caught my eyes as soon as I saw it. It’s easy to create a big row of houses with the die set, but I opted for a simple shaped card for this one. If you love putting together die cuts, this is the set for you. I cut two houses from Ballet Slipper cardstock. Onto one of them, I stamped one of the stamps in the coordinating stamp set using Ballet Slipper ink for a tone on tone look. this particular stamp is very forgiving. It’s just two lines spaced about half an inch apart, but they’re not completely parallel or straight, which means you don’t need to be too precise when stamping. I glued the two houses together on one flap and cut the other flap off, leaving a standard side fold card base.
Time for the bells and whistles. This die set is packed full of so much stuff you can add, there’s really no limit to what you can do. I chose a fun color combo of Cranberry, Midnight, Artichoke, Pistachio and Sea Glass to match the Ballet Slipper nicely. I doubled up the die cuts on nearly everything, even adding white glitter cardstock from Kort & Godt for the snow. On the door, I stamped the coordinating door stamp in Midnight ink, I popped up the letters, added a thick layer of Glossy Accents to the berries on the wreath, a somewhat thinner layer on the Sea Glass ornaments and some gold enamel dots to finish. I even used a gold enamel dot for the doorknob.
I stamped the image near the bottom center of a panel of X-Press It blending card using Extreme Black ink from MFT, which is a Copic safe hybrid ink. I colored the image and created a spooky silhouette background which fades from black in the distance to green as you get closer to the front of the image.
I masked off the scene and put a moon mask from an old Simon Says Stamp Stamptember collaboration with Tim Holtz into the top right corner, before I went in with Copics and an airbrush to create the sky. I used three colors of blue, trying to make it a bit lighter near the moon and darker further away. I took off the moon mask, masked the sky and airbrushed into the circle opening using E40 for a very pale moon. I then added the detail mask for the moon and airbrushed the openings with T1, which is a very light grey that I also used for the mouse. Once all the coloring was complete, I removed all the masks, added a bit of black glaze pen to their eyes and stamped a sentiment at the bottom using Obsidian ink from Altenew, before trimming the panel down a little and adhering it to a card base I created from Black cardstock from Concord & 9th to finish.
I used quite a few markers for this. The ones after the gap are the ones I used for the airbrushing of the moon and sky.
I started by stamping the little decorations on the trees with VersaMark ink onto Artichoke cardstock from Concord & 9th, before heat embossing with white embossing powder from Ranger. I then used the coordinating tree die to cut out my trees. I added foam tape to the back and put the trees aside while I worked on the rest of the card.
Onto a panel of Wheat cardstock from C9, I stamped and white heat embossed the snow flurries from the Sleigh full of cheer stamp set from C9, as well as a sentiment from the Joyful and merry stamp set from Kristina Werner. I used one of the dies in her Gift bows die set to cut a thin strip of Champagne cardstock from C9, which I adhered below the snow flurries and sentiment. I also die cut a star from the same cardstock using a die in the Yuletide Lane die set from Concord & 9th. I mounted my trees to the card and added the champagne star on top of the tallest tree to finish.
This was my inspiration for my card. Very clean and simple with lots of white space and the snow flurries in the background to ground the trees. It’s an awesome card!
I die cut the “map” from the Joyful Wreath die set into a panel of Nectar cardstock. This die doesn’t actually cut anything, but is a great placement guide when gluing all the leaves on top. I die cut the leaves from Eucalyptus, Rainforest, Grasshopper and Champagne cardstock and put a drop of liquid glue at the base of each, which made it possible to lift the leaves off the panel for an airy feel.
I die cut the top layer of the berries from Cayenne cardstock, opting for the darker Cranberry for the base. I glued them directly to the leaves, tucking parts behind some of the leaves. I went back and forth on the sentiment, trying a few different things before choosing this simple Kort & Godt sentiment to stamp in the center using Cayenne ink. I trimmed the Nectar panel slightly and adhered it all to a top fold white card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
I started by die cutting the branch four times from a piece of green patterned paper from the Key to my Heart Collection from Kaisercraft. I then painted unevenly with a VersaMarker and added White puff embossing powder from Wow! for a snowy effect on parts of the leaves. I then cut each of the branches up into little mini branches to create my wreath.
I splattered white reinker onto a panel of Wheat cardstock from Concord & 9th and adhered it to a top fold white card base. I added my mini sprigs of leaves in a wreath formation, popped up a sticker sentiment near the base of the wreath and added three red pearls to embellish. I also put little pieces of foam squares behind some of the leaves to make it more dimensional.
I colored the image with Copics, opting for the cool grays for the bench. I wasn’t planning on making it this dark originally, but when my C9 made a blob, dark was the only way to go. It still works, and I don’t think you can really see where the blob was. I used the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things to trim the panel down a little, then a large blending brush to add some soft blue to the background. I didn’t add any ink to the brush, I simply used whatever was left from a previous project.
I stamped a sentiment from the Småtekster stamp set from Norsk Stempelblad AS next to the bench using Tide Blue ink from Altenew. I added my colored piece to a panel of Buttercup cardstock from Concord & 9th, which I then adhered to a top fold white card base. I die cut the word hei twice from Green Parakeet cardstock from Papertrey Ink, stacked them and adhered my double die cut next to the boy on the bench before adding a few die cut clouds and some dew drops. Both the cloud dies and dew drops are from Concord & 9th.
I used quite a few colors for this very simple image.
I stamped the 
I used my Mijello Mission Gold watercolors and brushes in varying sizes to color in my scene, cut it down and stamped a sentiment from the 
I adhered the panel to a 5 3/4 x 5 1/2″ top fold card base I created from Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink, before finishing off with a few Raindrops from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
I stamped the image with black ink onto X-Press It blending card and colored it with Copics.
I added a mask to my image, then used the Bokeh Elements stencil duo from Waffle Flower to softly ink blend additional bubbles in an ombré effect in the background. I used Sweet Pea, Grapefruit and Buttercup inks, all colors from Concord & 9th, making sure to add slightly more color on the smaller circles than the large ones, while still keeping it fairly light.
I stamped a sentiment from the 
I trimmed my panel down slightly and added it with of dimension to a top fold white card base that I ombré ink blended using the same three colors I used with the stencils. I did also add a dot of black Glaze pen to the eyes of the ducks for a finishing touch.
Simple color palette for this one.
I started with a panel of Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink that I dry embossed. I then used a stencil set (the Butterfly Blooms set from Concord & 9th) to add the color. I used all inks from Concord & 9th: Powder for the background, Sprout and Parsley for the greens, Sunshine and Buttercup for the florals and Pink Lemonade and Honeysuckle for the pinks.
Once the panel was all inked, I adhered it to a white card base, created half circle notches at the top and bottom with a small circle die and thread some cotton thread through, which I tied off in a bow. I added pink sparkly gems to act as the bodies of the butterflies and finished off with a couple of black sentiment sticker strips that I mounted on foam tape. I love the softness of the background against the bold of the black. The black really draws your eye.
Papirmølla 