Hi, everyone! Happy hump day and Merry Christmas? Christmas may be 9 months away, but you can bet those 9 months will fly by fast, so I’m sharing a Christmas card today, featuring Sing Joy from Mo Manning. Getting so close to the end of the alphabet of my previously unused Mo digis. This is another one I can’t believe I haven’t colored up before, it’s so cute with that cat singing along.
I colored the image with my Copics, cut the panel down quite a bit and put lots of foam tape on the back. I dug through my patterned paper Christmas scraps and found a blue piece from Papirdesign that was large enough to cover the card front, as well as a couple of smaller pieces from Maja Design.
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment, before die cutting it with the mid size fishtail flag frame die from My Favorite Things. I added a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and my card was all done. Super simple, and one more card in the Christmas 2021 box. Feels good to have the pile grow!
Nothing too fancy in my coloring today. The combo I used for the cat happens to be nearly identical to the one I used for the girl’s hair, I just omitted the darkest one.
I colored the penguin with my Copics, fussy cut him and added 1 mm foam squares to the back. I created a fold over tag using the second largest die in the fold over tags nesting die set from We R Memory Keepers and some really old pink patterned paper from Magnolia.
I created a tag to go inside the folded over tag using scraps of patterned paper from Papirdesign. Using one of the dies in the Tag Builder Blueprints 6 die set from My Favorite Things, I created the to/from circle using that pink patterned paper, and matted it with a white die cut circle. I probably didn’t need the white circle, I’m thinking the letters would have stood out more against the grey patterned paper, but what’s done is done. I still like the white.
Fairly quick coloring on such a small image means I didn’t use a lot of markers. I originally colored his feet and beak orange/yellow, but didn’t like the look and covered it with grey. You can still see the orange shining through in the finished coloring. That, I don’t mind, for some reason, I just didn’t like the look of the orange alone. Some species of penguins have black feet anyway 😉
I colored up 
I added two layers of cardstock behind my colored piece, so it would stand out a little from my Limelight card base (colored card stock from My Favorite Things).
I added some vellum clouds on tiny pieces of foam tape, so it looks like the dinosaur’s neck is really long, I thought that was a fun little detail to add. Placed some enamel dots from Papirdesign in strategic places to cover the foam tape, and made an envelope from Papirdesign patterned paper using the A2 V flap envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp for the card to go in.
Bright, bold Copics!
I wasn’t sure what to do at first, but wound up fussy cutting the image, leaving a white trim. I usually prefer cutting right up against the edge, but I didn’t want to cut off the sketchy lines on the perimeter of the image, and decided to leave the white border. I ran a piece of white card stock through my die cutting machine using a geometric embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers. It gives the background a nice texture without being too distracting from the image.
After die cutting an eyelet circle from a Cottage Cutz die set using a piece of patterned paper from DCWV, I did some aggresive cropping to one side and mounted the remainder of the circle on my dry embossed white card stock using 1 mm foam squares. I added the white panel to the card base using regular foam tape, and added the girl on top of the circle, before finishing off the card with a heat embossed sentiment from an Altenew stamp set and a few sequins from the White Orchid sequin mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. The blue card stock is Blueberry from My Favorite Things.
Last, but not least, the colors I used for my coloring.
I colored my image onto X-Press It blending card using my Copics, before using the largest of the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX dies from My Favorite Things to turn it into a nice panel with faux stitching around the edge. I adhered it onto a card base I made from Coral Crush card stock from My Favorite Things. Sadly, the color’s discontinued, but they have loads of other gorgeous card stock colors at My Favorite Things.
I added a small cluster of scraps to the top left of my card. About half a mini doily from Doodlebug Design is at the bottom, followed by die cut pieces of patterned paper from Sunny Studio and a sentiment banner on top. I white heat embossed a sentiment from the Bitty Bears stamp set from My Favorite Things onto a banner of Peach Bellini card stock, also a discontinued MFT color.
My embellishments tend to be sequins or enamel dots centered around the sentiment on my cards. For this one, I added another two sequins in the bottom right corner, just to do something different than my standard three sequins. These sequins are from the Heaven Sent mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
I used quite a few colors for this one. For the frosting on the pink cupcake, I also used R87, which is a color I’ve created myself.
My card is heavily inspired by a card 
Tenia’s card had a wide piece of washi tape going in from the right near the top of the card, with a rectangle perpendicular to the washi with a couple of small colored flowers on top, a sentiment and a few enamel dots. Once I’d ink blended a little bit using Audrey Blue and Island Blue inks from Simon Says Stamp, I tried to add a rectangle to my card, but it was too long and too wide for my liking. I scrapped that idea and die cut a polaroid frame instead for my little hedgehog to sit in. I used the second smallest die from the Precious Polaroids die set from My Favorite Things, and stacked four on top of each other for dimension. The die cut was just big enough to stamp a sentiment onto. The shortest sentiment in the 
I added a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and my card was complete. Lots of white space, a cute hedgehog and one more Christmas card in the bank for 2021. Doesn’t get much better than that!
Super limited color palette for this tiny image.
I went with a really bright pink, colored in the image with my Copics and did some serious fussy cutting, before adding 1 mm foam squares to the back. I also stamped one of the sentiments from the 
From a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock, I used the largest of the dies in the Stitched Traditional Tag STAX die set from My Favorite Things, masked off a curved line towards the bottom and ink blended a gray sky using Charcoal, Soft Granite and Wet Cement ink from Hero Arts, as well as Soft Stone ink from Papertrey Ink. The Charcoal is fairly dark, but the Soft Stone super soft, giving a nice gradient feel. I sprinked on chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and heated the tag from behind to melt the granules for a snowy effect on my background.
Going direct to paper, I colored a scrap of Bristol Smooth with the Hibiscus Burst ink pad that I used for the sentiment, before using one of the tiny dies in the Tag Builder Blueprints 6 die set from My Favorite Things to create my reinforcement piece. I think the faux stitching on the circle matches the stitching on the tag perfectly, one of many reasons why I love my MFT dies, they’re so awesome to mix and match. I added a bit of Cotton Candy twine from Whisker Graphics and a charm from my stash near the top to complete the tag.
Not a lot of colors for this one, but I did my best to make the pink really pop against the other colors.
I colored the image with Copics and die cut it using the second largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things, before adding it to a card base made from Gumdrop Green Heavyweight card stock, also from MFT, using lots and lots of foam tape. I used a black Glaze pen to add some dimension and shine to their eyes and noses.
I’m one of those people that use patterned paper on my cards. I don’t use lots, and I pretty much always use them for small clusters, but my ancient stash of patterned paper is shrinking ever so slightly with each card. I have a tub of die cut patterned paper scraps on my desk, and rummage through it to find the perfect pieces for my clusters. The dark green patterned paper I used here is actually from 2005, which was years before I started making cards. I stamped one of the sentiments from the Always Bring a Smile stamp set from My Favorite Things onto a separate piece of Gumdrop Green card stock and die cut it using one of the dies in the Slimline Starter die set. I finished off my card with a few enamel dots from Papirdesign to match the tiger and the details on the bird.
Another great use of patterned paper is envelopes. I’ve nearly run out of colored envelopes for A2 cards, and I’m definitely out of white ones, but larger scraps of patterned paper are perfect for creating one of a kind envelopes. I used the A2 V flap envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp on this piece of patterned paper from 3ndypapir. Another old one, this paper’s from 2010.
Lots of bright colors used for this one. I also used B40, which is a color I’ve created myself.
I thought 
Using Memento Bamboo Leaves ink, I stamped a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS inside one of the balloons, stamped again in VersaMark ink and clear heat embossed it. It makes it stand out a little more from the balloon. I die cut the panel using a die from the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things and adhered it to a card base made from Sour Apple card stock from MFT using lots of foam tape for dimension.
I added Sparkling Clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh to three of the balloons, and my card was finished. All that was missing was an envelope. The only colored envelopes for A2 sized cards I have left are in warm tones, so I decided to make my own using the A2 V flap envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp with a scrap piece of patterned paper from Papirdesign.
I thought the color of the patterned paper matched the blue balloons on the card so well, and it made the pile in my scrap drawer shrink ever so slightly, gotta love that!
I kind of went overboard with the number of Copics used for each balloon, but I think it turned out pretty good in the end.
I had the beginnings of a plan before I started coloring this cutie, and knew that I wanted a window of sorts for the image to be sitting in. I traced a square die onto my panel before I started coloring, so I knew how large of an area I needed to fill in beyond the baby and the cloud.
Using the Star turnabout stamp from Concord & 9th along with Misty Morning and Cloudy Sky Ink from Altenew, I was able to create a quick panel of scattered stars in colors that matched my colored image. Using dies from two die sets from My Favorite Things, I turned my panel into one with a window and nice faux stitching along the edges. I really like the look of the faux stitch lines that many of the MFT dies have. Other companies have faux stitching dies too, but there’s something about the length of the stitches, the distance between them and the adjacency to the edge of the MFT ones that make them a favorite of mine. I put foam tape on the back of my stamped star panel, making sure to center my image in the window.
I didn’t have any card stock colors that fit my stamping and coloring perfectly, so I went direct to paper using the Cloudy Sky ink from Altenew onto a quarter piece of white lettersize card stock. I adhered that to a white top folding card base made out of Stamper’s Select White card stock from Papertrey Ink, which is the same card stock that I use throughout (except for the colored image, which is on X-Press It blending card, the only paper I use for Copic coloring). Using another die set from MFT, I die cut tiny little stars and stacked some scattered around on the stamped star panel. I stamped and white heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment onto a scrap piece of my dyed card stock, before using a couple of additional dies from MFT to turn it into a banner. I love my MFT dies!
Limited color palette. For the sky, in addition to B21, I used B20, which is a color I’ve made myself. I also used BG71, another color I’ve made, for the clothing on the baby.
Papirmølla 