Hi, everyone! I’m back with another card using stamps from “The Sweetest Little Town” collection from Purple Onion Designs, illustrated by Stacey Yacula. For a limited time you can actually purchase the entire collection in a bundle, with a whopping 30 % discount off the regular prices in the Purple Onion store here. They’re all such great images, the sentiments are wonderful and this is an awesome deal. You’d better hurry though, the promotion ends November 15, 2020.
I love these stamps!! And I do believe this is the first time I’ve colored a goose! And it’s such a cute goose too, she (her name is Poinsettia) even has a beanie and is definitely dressed for the season! I wanted to create a scene with a few of the shopping critters and the toy store in the background.
I was going to make a 5×7″ card, but changed my mind. It meant that Hank the owl wouldn’t fit on the front. I chose a dark gray card base and needed to add a panel to write a personal message on the inside, and decided to stamp Hank in a corner and color him up. Isn’t he cute?? Maybe he’s been shopping for his wife, or daughter, or mother, based on the color of his shopping bags. I wanted to keep the color scheme going from the front of the card.
The bears are Miles and Beth. I’m imagining Beth is Miles’ grandmother, and he’s dragging her into the toy store. I really wanted to use the City sidewalks sentiment, and to make it even more fitting I found the vanishing point for a one point perspective using the lines from the buildings and drew in a sidewalk with my Copics. I added a fence and a tree in a park off into the distance to complete my little scene.
To me, this color scheme is a bit untraditional, but I didn’t want to go with the same red and green combo I used for my last card, so I had to come up with something new. Somehow, I had it in my head (thanks to Liz) that my toy store needed to be red, so I came up with a combination of a pink based red, a light, peachy color and a brighter green than the greens I usually go for.
Lots of Copics used for this one, I did color in the whole front of the card, after all. I stamped the background using Fadeout ink from Inkon3, so once my Copic coloring was done, I went in with a gray Prismacolor for details on the windows and a little bit of brown for the horse and the ribbon on the presents in the display windows.
When I first got the stamps, the first thing I did was create masks for each and every single one of them. Time consuming, sure, but so worth it to be able to create scenes like this. For this card, I started by stamping the S
I colored the scene using Copics, making sure to use muted, soft colors for the background and brighter colors and more detailed coloring for the snowman and his friends. That penguin chick had me, I love him!! I stamped a sentiment from the 
I cut my colored piece down a little and was going to add it to a 5×7″ card base, but realized I’d cut too much off the height, so I had to shrink the card front accordingly. The finished card measures 5 x 6 1/2″. A bit of an unusual size, I guess, but I think it works. I added a piece of green patterned paper from Papirdesign to my white side folding card base and mounted my colored piece with plenty of foam tape. Normally I’d use Stormy Sea card stock for my base, but I didn’t have a piece big enough, and that patterned paper (without much of a pattern) was a great match.
Lots of colors for this one, but I used the ones before T7 on the snow alone… No wonder it’s a lot.
I colored up the cute 
I die cut the tag an additional two times, once in a red patterned paper that I glued on the back of my colored piece, and once in a green patterned paper that I offset and glued on the back for a little interest. I stamped the standard To/From (this particular stamp is from Norsk Stempelblad AS) on the green patterned paper using Olive Twist ink from Papertrey Ink.
Underneath the kitten I stamped ho ho ho from the Scripty Xmas stamp set from Mama Elephant, using that same Olive Twist color ink. I added a bit of red lacey ribbon to the hole on the top of the tag, tied a bow around it using a very fine thread that I think is meant for warping looms, it used to be my grandmother’s. I added a little bell charm to the bow, I thought it was a nice finishing touch.
Not a whole lot of colors used for this one, but the image isn’t very big either.
I felt like I really needed to add a photo of the kitten in the tree. She was very content up there.
I used the slimline starter die from My Favorite Things to die cut a panel of Blue Breeze cardstock for my card front. I stamped the 
I didn’t want to add my colored pieces directly to the blue underneath. I decided to add a mat behind each of the images, and I cut them down to be slightly larger than the images themselves. We’re talking super thin frames, I think they wound up being about 1/32″ all around. They might be small, but it was enough that I didn’t have room for a sentiment between my images, so I cut apart the Ho ho ho sentiment from the 
Once I’d colored the image with Copics, I used the largest die in the A2 Stitched Rectangle STAX Set 2 from My Favorite Things to die cut a landscape oriented panel that would fit perfectly on my card base with a 1/16″ border around. I like the 1/16″ little frame, AND it’s the same width as the distance from the faux stitching to the cut line. I like having them the same. Little details like that matter, to paraphrase a famous German architect (Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who coined the term “God is in the details”).
I created a top fold card from Stormy Sea cardstock from Papertrey Ink. It’s a color that matches the BG90 family from Copic really really REALLY well. I need to order more, I only have half a sheet left of this color. I used the same color cardstock to diecut the word wishes using a die from Mama Elephant that was free with purchase if you spent a certain amount during their birthday extravaganza back in September. Normally I’d diecut the word several times in the color I wanted, but since I was running super low on this particular grayish green, I used a few layers of white diecut words, and only one layer of the colored cardstock on top. I stamped and white heat embossed the word “holiday” from the Iconic Ornament stamp set from Mama Elephant, also free with purchase over a certain amount on the Mama Elephant site back in September. I added a few more layers of cardstock behind it for dimension and glued it to my sky using Gina K liquid glue, which I also used for the die cut word.
I decided not to add any additional elements. No embellishments, no nothing, I didn’t want to distract too much from that adorable image.
Not a lot of Copics for this one, and 14 of these were used for the snow and polar bear.
I started by coloring my little snowman and his friend using my Copics. I went with a bit of a split complementary color scheme on this one. I’m no fan of complementary colors, but split complementary are infinitely better, and blue green (which I used for the snow on the snowman), purple and orange are split complementary colors. I didn’t want a bright orange, though, so I went more coral, and I love how it turned out.
I used a faux stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things to turn my colored piece into a nice panel. I love these dies, they add such a finished look. I sprinkled on a moderate amount of chunky white embossing enamel from Stampendous and melted the powder. I love the snowy look this gives.
I mounted my die cut piece onto a card base made from Lavender Fields cardstock from My Favorite Things using plenty of foam tape. This color perfectly matched the purple in my image, something I always try to accomplish in my cards for a nice, cohesive design. I die cut and stacked four Hurra from Melon Berry cardstock from Papertrey Ink using a Kort & Godt die. I love stacking die cuts, it adds a super nice look of dimension. I also white heat embossed a sub sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS onto more of that Lavender Fields cardstock, and stacked that, as well, making it flush with the die cut word.
I added a couple of sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh and my card was complete. I cut a little bit off the largest one with my scissors to make it look like it’s tucked behind that sentiment strip.
Last, but not least, the Copic markers I used to color my image. I also used B40 and BG71, which are colors I’ve made myself.
I used a square die from Lifestyle Crafts to die cut my elf down to the size I wanted, in this case 4″.
I then stamped a sentiment from the Scripty Xmas stamp set from Mama Elephant using Enchanted Evening ink from Papertrey Ink, before gluing my panel to a 4 1/4″ square card base made from Dark Indigo cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink. I finished off my card by gluing on some stars from a sequin mix from Hero Arts. They’re iridescent, which I’m normally not a big fan of, but it worked on this card.
I love the ease of clear stamps, but rubber stamps like this one have much finer lines, and they stamp beautifully every single time, I love that. I also love blue for Christmas, but that’s hardly a secret 😉
I colored up this image for day 27 of Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge back in May. Yes, I colored a winter scene in May… BUT I wanted to feature as many different companies as possible during the coloring challenge, and the only ones I have from Kinda Cute are winter ones. I love making Christmas cards, so I really didn’t mind.
I had initially planned on making an A2 landscape card, but it just wasn’t working, there was no natural place to put the sentiment. After I’d added the iridescent glitter paste over a Simon Says Stamp falling snow stencil and glued my panel to my cardbase, I chopped off 1-1/4″ on the right hand side of the card and then carefully went in with a craft knife to cut off an additional 1/16″ from my top layer. It works if you use a fresh blade and cut multiple times using very light pressure.
I stamped and white heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment onto more of that same Dark Indigo cardstock from Papertrey Ink that I used for my card front, before using a speech bubble die from Altenew to die cut. I mounted my speech bubble using some foam tape, and my card was finished.
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.
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.
Papirmølla 