Hi, crafty friends. I have a super simple card to share today. Sometimes, it takes forever to create a card (or at least, it feels that way), other times it goes so fast. Today’s card falls into the latter category. I guess there’s something about a time crunch that makes be efficient – I definitely work better under pressure.
I love Mo’s elves, and this is Little Elf Kippa. The original image faces the other direction, but I flipped it in Photoshop so that he or she is facing right instead of left – one of the many advantages of using digital stamps. I also printed it at about 12% opacity for a no line look, only keeping the eye and eyebrow dark before printing.
Once the image was colored, I used the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things to create a faux stitch border. I then white heat embossed a sentiment from the Mini Messages stamp set from Mama Elephant in the center of the darkest bauble, before adhering the panel onto a top fold card base I created from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I added a few diamonds from the Urban Chic mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards to finish off the card.
Simple color palette for this one. It was super fast to color too, which isn’t usually the case with no line coloring.
I didn’t know what color scheme to go for, and my color buddy Liz suggested purple, knowing I’d kind of hate her for it. 😉 I struggle with purple. It’s not my favorite color to begin with, it’s tricky to photograph well, and also difficult to find good matches with ink and cardstock for. AND it’s even hard to find colors that pair well with it. It’s not something I’d normally use for a Christmas card, but I love a good challenge, so I grabbed a bunch of purple Copics and started coloring.
I kind of tried to chicken out a bit by asking Liz if it’d be okay if I added some aqua tones. “Only if purple is the dominant color,” was her answer. With no chance to weasel my way out of purple and into something I’m more comfortable with, there was only one thing to do… keep coloring purple.
I did add a little bit of aqua to not have everything purple. I even tried some blue, but that didn’t really work and I actually covered up the blue… with more purple. Once I finished my coloring, I added a sentiment from the 
I used a black glaze pen to get their eyes extra black and shiny, added a tiny white dot to each eye using the 05 white Gelly Roll, and covered Rudolph’s nose with Glossy Accents. Once dry, I sprinkled on lots of chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and melted the granules from the back of the panel for a snowy look.
I adhered my colored panel to a top fold landscape card base I created from Royal Velvet cardstock from Papertrey Ink, and added a thin strip of Sea Glass cardstock from Concord & 9th below the sentiment for an additional element that wasn’t purple.
I used so many colors for this, it’s ridiculous. I used different colors for all the animals, only keeping cheeks, noses and inner ears the same throughout.
I colored up the scene using Copics, then used the largest die in the Slimline Double Stitched Rectangle STAX die set from My Favorite Things to add faux stitching to both sides. There’s no reason you can’t use slimline dies for an A2 sized card, and this worked out really well, the die was the perfect width for my image.
I used a black glaze pen from Sakura to get some shine and dimension into the eyes of these cute critters (you can see it in real life when you tilt the card in the light, I promise), then sprinkled on Stampendous chunky white embossing enamel that I melted from the back of the panel.
Using lots of foam tape, I adhered my panel to a top fold card base I created from Blueberry Sky cardstock from Papertrey Ink. This blue is gorgeous, and it’s perfect for the B90 Copic family.
I white heat embossed a sentiment from the Christmas Greetings stamp set from Lili of the Valley onto a piece of Amarena Cherry cardstock from My Favorite Things. I cut the sentiment down to a strip and added it to the card using foam tape.
To finish off the card I added a few die cut heart outlines. These are from the Wax Seals die set from Waffle Flower. There are two different sized hearts in the die set, I used both for this card and cut them from Amarena Cherry cardstock before adhering them to the card.
Simple color palette for this one. Lots of colors used for the snow, that’s pretty much a given when I color snow.
I colored up the image yesterday, actually, while watching Tim Holtz’ live on Instagram. Once the coloring was complete, I used the largest of the dies in the Wonky Stitched Rectangle STAX die set from My Favorite Things to give it a nice faux stitch edge.
I adhered my colored and die cut panel to a quarter piece of Classic Kraft cardstock from Papertrey Ink, then adhered it all to a top fold note card I created from white cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink.
I thought the sentiment was perfect for this little image, and decided to print it in brown onto Classic Kraft cardstock. I then used a 1″ circle punch from EK Success to cut it, then added it to the card using foam tape for a little bit of dimension.
I kept the card very simple and decided to only add a few sequins. I love the sequin mixes from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards and use them very often on my cards. These particular ones are from the White Orchid sequin mix.
A little bit of a side view shows the dimension and those sequins a little bit better.
Not a lot of Copics used for this card, this came together really quickly.
I stamped the word happy repeatedly in a column on a piece of X-Press It blending card, stamped birthday close to the bottom and colored in all the individual happy words using Copics.
I trimmed my panel down significantly, before adding plenty of foam tape to the back of it and mounting it to a card base I created from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
I wanted to add even more dimension by having one of the happy words popped up, but the letters are so narrow, they were too tricky to put foam tape on the back of. I decided to add dimension in another way by covering the green letters with Nuvo Jewel Drops in the color Key Lime. It makes the happy slightly raised and also gives it some shine.
Clean, simple, colorful – what more could you want from a card?
Lots of Copics used for this one.
I’ve created a very simple card this time, featuring this cute little car from the new 
I did some simple no line coloring of the image. I hadn’t done no line in a while when I created this, so opting for this tiny image was perhaps not the most brilliant idea ever. It’s kind of what I do, though, I jump in. I used a grey Copic to give the illusion of someone sitting in the car, used a couple of blues for some simple shading near the tires and kept everything very simple.
Using four different shades of blue ink (Distress Inks in the colors Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans and Stormy Sky, in addition to Iceberg ink from Altenew), I softly ink blended an ombre sky before sprinkling on Chunky White embossing enamel for a snowy effect that I love having on my cards. I heated the panel from the back, melting the granules and adhered the panel onto a top fold card base I created from white cardstock from Papertrey Ink.
Using the sentiment die from The Penguin’s Waddle die set from Mama Elephant, I created a chunky sentiment by adding several die cuts together for a stacked, dimensional look. I adhered it to the top center of my card and finished it off by placing a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards near the car.
I love a dimensional die cut sentiment, it kind of says I mean business and adds so much to a simple card!
Simple color palette for this one. It’s a simple card with a tiny image, so it’s kind of a given.
This set comes with sooo many images, and I’ve actually used 11 different ones for this card. I added the lines for the shelf with a black pen, but everything else in the scene comes in the one stamp set.
I’m known on the design team for occasionally printing my images very small. This time I might have set a new record, the mouse and the eyeballs in this scene were so small, they were tricky to color, but I really wanted them this size to fit the scene and the card design.
Once I finished the coloring, I trimmed the panel down to 3 1/4 x 4 1/2″, and put it aside while I worked on the rest of the card.
I created a card base from Cement Gray cardstock from My Favorite Things, added three 1/4″ strips of cardstock in colors that matched the scene (Royal Velvet from Papertrey Ink, Orange Zest from Papertrey Ink, Sour Apple from My Favorite Things), before I mounted the scene on top using plenty of foam tape.
I stamped and white heat embossed the sentiment from the Itty Bitty Boos stamp set from My Favorite Things, added a few more layers of cardstock behind it for stability and dimension and finished off the card with a trio of acetate ghosts from the Candy Corn mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.
Lots of Copics for this little scene.
As soon as I saw this stamp set, I knew these snow globes would make the perfect shaker cards. The stamp set comes with the snow globe and six different scenes you can stamp inside. I, of course, opted for the penguin, but there’s also a snowman, a car with a tree on the roof, a house, a tree with presents and a village, as well as a few sentiments.
I stamped and colored the empty snow globe on a quarter sheet of X-Press It blending card. I stamped the penguin on a separate piece of blending card and colored that for the inside of my snow globe. I glued a few Kort & Godt pearls around the penguin and put him aside while I worked on the rest of the card.
I cut the center out of the snow globe and adhered a piece of acetate to the back of the white cardstock, before adding foam tape on the back of the shaker area, making sure not to leave any gaps. With glitter inside the shaker window, you don’t want it to escape.
I put a mix of clear Distress glitter from Ranger and some micro beads inside the shaker area, before adding my colored penguin to the exposed adhesive of the foam tape to close the shaker.
I initially put too much inside (I always seem to put too much inside) and had to pour some out to get the perfect amount. I then adhered my popped up snow globe to a card base I created from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I used the merry script die from Mama Elephant to cut the word merry three times from Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things, stacking the die cuts for a dimensional look. Near the bottom of the letters I softly ink blended a bit of Blueberry Sky ink from Papertrey Ink to add a little bit of a gradient. I stamped the word Christmas from the 
This is a fairly simple looking card, but it’s got tons of dimension and a shaker card is always fun, right?
Not a whole lot of Copics for this one. I did also use B90, which is a color I made myself using an empty marker, some B91 refill and blender refill.
I printed the image with a 10% opacity onto X-Press It blending card before coloring. Whenever I want to color things that are supposed to look close to white (ice, snow, polar bears +++), I prefer doing a no line version. To me, there’s something very distracting about black lines on an image that’s supposed to look white, so I prefer the softer no line version. I colored the image with Copics, starting with the sky, then ocean, ice floe, polar bear and finally the penguin and his little scarf. I prefer doing the black towards the end, it’s just good practice to avoid getting it into nearby areas where you don’t want it.
Once I finished the coloring, I die cut the panel using the second largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangles STAX 1 set from My Favorite Things, before mounting it on foam tape onto a white card base I created from white cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I die cut the word klem (hug) twice from white cardstock using a die from Kort & Godt. It’s actually a Christmas die that says juleklem (Christmas hug), but by using only the latter part of the word, I have a completely different use for the die, which I love. That’s the whole card, I decided not to add any embellishments, I wanted to keep the focus on the image.
Loooots of Copics for this deceptively simple scene.
Using the Itsy Bitsy Polka Dot Backdrop die from Lawn Fawn, I die cut a panel of white cardstock from Papertrey Ink to add a little bit of texture to the front of my card. I adhered it to a quarter panel of Blue Breeze cardstock from My Favorite Things, before using the Selfie Square die, also from My Favorite Things, to die cut a window in the top center.
I put foam tape on the back of my polka dot panel and adhered it to my colored piece, making sure to line up the image so it would show trough the window the way I wanted it to. I then grabbed a quarter panel of Jalapeño Popper cardstock from My Favorite Things and used my G99 Copic marker and scribbled it close to the edge of the green cardstock to make the color match my car a little bit better. Green cardstock is tricky, and I don’t often find the right kind of green that I want for my projects. This was an easy hack, but if anyone out there has a suggestion for a green cardstock that is close in color to G99 (or G94), please let me know.
I adhered my improved green cardstock to an A2 top fold white note card and mounted the polka dot piece with the colored window using foam tape – lots of it. I then used the same Blue Breeze cardstock that I used previously to cut the word merry three times using the Merry Script die from Mama Elephant. I love their script dies! On the top layer I spritzed sheer shimmer craft spray from Imagine for a bit of sparkle to the letters. Unfortunately, details like that are tricky to photograph, but it’s definitely noticeable in real life, trust me 🙂
Onto a leftover scrap of X-Press It blending card, I scribbled an even layer of G99 to create a dark green cardstock that would match my colored image. Onto it, I white heat embossed the word 
I love my Copics and used quite a few for this rather simple image.
Papirmølla 