Hi, everyone! I’ve got another Christmas card to share today, this time featuring Letter to Santa from Rachelle Anne Miller.
This card was a bit of an evolution. Things really didn’t go my way, but I was able to fix it all in the end. The piece of Papertrey Ink Stormy Sea card stock I was planning to use was a teeny tiny bit smaller than I needed to be (and I’m running seriously low on that particular color), so I used a die from Waffle Flower to cut it down a little, and it’s now 4-1/8 x 5-3/8″. I cut the center portion out to use for later, no one will ever know that there’s a whole in the center of it. I glued it to a top folding white card base, creating a nice 1/16″ border around the perimeter. Problem number 1 solved.
Problem number 2: My hair was wet from showering when I started assembling this card, and there was a drop of water that fell on the bear’s head. Solution: Sprinkle on chunky white embossing powder from Stampendous and melt the powder with my heat gun…
… which led me to problem number 3. My heat gun was too hot and I burned the panel. It’s not super visible in the photo, but it tuned the piece yellowish right underneath the pole. Solution: use Copics to color the snow under the bear in a similar color, making everything look intentional.
My final struggle was figuring out where to put the sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS. I wanted it on the right side of the card, but it just wasn’t working, so I stamped and heat embossed it a second time with the fishtail end on the right and put it on foam tape on the left side of the front instead. I think it worked pretty well. I added a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things From Lucy’s Cards as my final touches.
I colored this image a while back, but only now had time to turn it into a card. I considered using a red card base for this, but really wanted the girl to pop, so I went with my trusty blue. This time I chose Blue Yonder card stock from My Favorite Things.
I die cut the panel with the girl and the polar bear with the largest faux stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things from their Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set of dies.
I used another faux stitch die to create the little circle for my sentiment, which is a stamp from Norsk Stempelblad AS. I stamped the sentiment in VersaMark ink and sprinkled on super fine detail embossing powder from Ranger before heating that until it melted.
I mounted my little circle sentiment with foam tape and had planned to leave it at that, but I managed to spill a drop of coffee on the snow portion of my image and needed to cover that up. One single sequin would look silly, so I added a few more to make it look intentional. No one will ever know that there’s a coffee stain under that smallest one. The sequins are sparkling clear from Pretty Pink Posh.
I use a crazy amount of markers to color snow…
This color palette is definitely not the norm for me, but I was surprised at how much I like it. I think the secret was finding a pink combo I liked that wasn’t a screaming hot pink, and that also had a bit of contrast within it. Even better – my pink color combo matches the Autumn Rose color from Papertrey Ink, so I created my cardbase from a sheet of Autumn Rose cardstock and even stamped a few snowflakes from an old Simon Says Stamp stamp set (Holiday Envelope Sentiments) on the envelope using Autumn Rose ink. The envelope itself is a Deluxe white slimline envelope from My Favorite Things.
After coloring all my snowmen with Copics, I added a sprinkling of chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and heated my panel from the back until all the granules had melted. It warped quite a bit, so I ran the panel through my Gemini Jr without any dies, just sandwiching the panel between my cutting plates. That took care of the warping, and I could continue by gluing the panel of snowmen to the cardbase, before popping up a Norsk Stempelblad AS heart sentiment that I stamped using Autumn Rose ink. I also added a few Crafty Moly snowflakes that I covered in three layers of white embossing powder.
RV99, R56, RV34 and RV32 – who would have guessed that it made such a pretty pink? Not me, that’s for sure, but I’m glad I stumbled upon this combo.
I wanted a soft color palette for my card, so I have no colors that are really dark in this image. The darkest marker I used is E57, and it’s contained to the hair on one of the fairies, the flower centers and the ladybug.
Once I’d colored the entire panel, I took the largest of the dies from the Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things to turn it into a panel and create a nice border on the front of my card. I knew from the start that I wanted my sentiment inside the balloon, but I couldn’t decide on white or black. I thought the white might not pop enough against the yellow balloon, but I also knew that the end of the pigtail on the fairy would mess with any black stamping, making the letter illegible. In the end, I went with the white, but you can hardly see it in the photos against that lightest yellow. I might go in with a water brush and the refill for the darkest color I used on the balloon to darken it up later. I don’t want to ruin the nibs of my markers by touching the embossing, but refill and water brush with a little bit of blender solution will work without ruining anything.
I finished my card by adding some groupings of sequins and Jewels from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. I used the Iced Sherbet mix for this card.
Last, but certainly not least, are the colors I used for my image.
I used a cover die from Neat & Tangled to diecut twice from white cardstock and several times from scraps of different green patterned paper scraps. These are a mix of Papirdesign, Maja Design, Kaisercraft, and one that I don’t even know. Great way to use all those little bits.
I glued my white frames together and inlayed my green pieces, before die cutting a word die from Papirdesign using Ripe Avocado cardstock from Papertrey Ink for the word itself and white for the shadow. I stacked a few of the green ones on top of each other for it to stand out a little bit.
I used some angel hair to make a nest underneath my diecut and glued it right on top using liquid glue. I also added a few sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh for some shine, and stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment in Ripe Avocado ink from Papertrey Ink on a white strip and added it below my die cut word.
Simple, but the dimension in the frame and the focal point still give the card a little bit of interest.
This is the 
I colored in the image using my Copics. I don’t think I’ve ever colored ocean before, and I was genuinely surprised by how easy it was. I even a little hint of blue to the ocean beneath the ice, giving the illusion of something more under water. 9/10 of an iceberg is under water, after all. It may seem weird that I chose yellow hearts for a Christmas card, but I have a very specific recipient in mind for this card, and she loves yellow 😉
I die cut my panel using the third largest die in the Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things and stamped a sentiment that I made from two different Norsk Stempelblad AS stamp sets using Simon Says Stamp Audrey Blue ink. I sprinkled on some chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and heated it from behind, melting the granules. The last thing to do was add lots of foam tape to the back and attach it to my white card base. Couldn’t get much simpler than this, really.
Lots of blue and blue green Copics used on this image. Oh, and grays, quite a few of those, as well.
I colored up these snowmen for Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge in June of last year, so it felt good to finally put them to use. Another thing I put to use? Those die cut squares. They were left over from 
I had 12 snowmen, but I needed room for a sentiment, so I stamped one from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto one of the die cut white squares using Papertrey Ink Enchanted Evening ink and glued the last snowman to the inside of the card instead.
I used the largest die in the Stitched Rectangles Stax Set 1 from My Favorite Things on some Enchanted evening card stock, and glued it to my Stamper’s Select White card base before adding all the squares with 1 mm foam squares. I then used more 1 mm foam squares on the back of the snowmen. Dimension is life, as Laura Bassen says. I didn’t want this card to be too thick, though, so I stuck with the 1 mm. Added some snowflakes die cut with the Hero Arts Snowflake Confetti die, and my card was finished.
This image was part of the Christmas release from Lili of the Valley that came out a few weeks ago, you can find the stamp 
I had loads of diecut squares left over from my previous card, they were the interior pieces of the stacked frames I used. Instead of letting them go to waste, I thought I’d put them to good use. I took four squares and mounted them to my blue snowflake panel using 1 mm foam squares. Believe it or not, but this was the part that took the longest. Getting them centered perfectly near the top with equal spacing between them all and equal distances to both sides and the top of the panel took…. well, it felt like forever. With this kind of design, though, you have to get it just right, or it’ll throw off the balance of the entire card. They’re equally distanced down to 1/32″, that’s about as good as it gets.
Papirmølla 