Hi, everyone!
I’ve got a super simple Christmas card to share with you today, featuring the Penguins Ho Ho Ho digital stamp from Lili of the Valley. This is such a fun stamp, and the size and orientation make it perfect for a portrait A2 sized card.
I colored my image using Copics. I don’t often use red on my Christmas cards, and I never pair it with green, but I love the look of red and gray or red and teal. For this one I went with both gray and teal, and I did my best to make the leaves in the image as “un-green” as I could by choosing the BG90s to color those in. A great little trick to coloring with red is to color in all the other colors first. That way you don’t run the risk of transferring red ink onto the other sections of your image if you accidentally color over the line into the red.
I diecut my colored panel using the largest of the faux stitch dies I have from My Favorite Things (I’ve used the Stitched Rectangles STAX Set 2) and glued it onto a cardbase of Tropical Teal cardstock, also from My Favorite Things. I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from the Sweet Holiday Penguins stamp set from My Favorite Things, diecut that using the Fishtail Flag Frames die set from MFT and mounted it onto my card with 1 mm foam squares for a tiny bit of dimension.
Here are all the Copics I used. The Es are all used to create my red color. I find that the actual reds (the Rs) in the Copic range are either too orange or too pink for my liking when it comes to Christmas reds, so I always use the Es for my base before going in with a couple of Rs at the end to make the color pop.
I colored up this 
I ran a white cardstock panel through my Gemini Jr with an embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers to create some texture in the background. I mounted it on foam tape and centered it on my card front, before adding my colored image with some 1 mm foam squares for even more dimension.
I white heat embossed a sentiment from the same stamp set onto True Black cardstock from Papertrey Ink, mounted that on more foam tape and added some sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh for a finishing touch.
I wanted most of the focus on the cute little parade, so I kept the rest pretty simple. I made a cardbase from Hibiscus Burst cardstock from Papertrey Ink. It matches the pinks in my image perfectly. I used a die from Kort & Godt to diecut the main sentiment from four layers of the same color cardstock, layering them for a dimensional effect.
I white heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment (time for balloons and soda) onto Stormy Sea cardstock (also from Papertrey Ink). I stacked four layers on this one too, making the sub sentiment flush with the diecut word.
I added a couple of matte gold sequins from the Mint Gold sequins mix from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards as a finishing touch. They sort of match the cymbals the tiny squirrel is holding, and also the drumsticks. Simple, bright and cheerful. If this birthday card doesn’t put a smile on someone’s face, I don’t know what will.
I leave you with the colors I used for this image. Not really a whole lot for this one.
The 
I wanted something in the background, but nothing too distracting. White on white is such a classic look, and I diecut both the Layered Snowflake cover dies from Altenew (there’s 
I fussy cut around my colored image and mounted it on foam tape. This image is quite large, and even though there’s a lot of detail in the image, it’s very easy to fussy cut. I mounted it on a bit of an angle, making the leaves stick out from both sides of the card. I also white heat embossed a sentiment from the same stamps set on black cardstock and added that to my design.
My last finishing touch was a few sparkling clear sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. Some of them tucked, in true Laura Bassen style, and I even used my scissors on one.
I colored up 
This type of card has become my signature card style. I haven’t however, used those Doodlebug mini doilies in a while, so it was good to pull out half of one (a little less than half, actually) for this card. I used the Fishtail Flag Frames dies from My Favorite Things to diecut a couple of banners from yellow scraps of patterned paper. The bottom one is from My Mind’s Eye, the top one from Papirdesign. I also diecut the sentiment strip after stamping and heat embossing a sentiment from an old Papertrey Ink stamp set on that piece of Hawaiian Shores cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink. I added to more layers of cardstock behind my sentiment to make it a little more dimensional.
The last little piece of business was adding some enamel dots. I hardly ever make cards without enamel dots or sequins, and I tend to always place them near the sentiment, it draws in the eyes. Nice little trick for’ya.
For this card I chose a tealy green/blue watercolor splash background and a penguin with a camera in his hand. I knew I had to use this one as soon as I saw it, and an idea formed in my mind as to how my card would look in the end. The files are in png format, so they’re good quality and very easy to use together. I simply added my penguin to the splash background in Photoshop and printed. It couldn’t be easier. I love that I now have a watercolor look, but the paper is bright white, smooth and perfect for Copic coloring.
I diecut my panel with a faux stitch rectangle die from My Favorite Things, and glued it to a cardbase made from Tropical Teal cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I used a polaroid die, also from My Favorite Things, to diecut the frame four times out of that same Tropical Teal color and once from the same white cardstock I used for the rest (X-Press It blending card, btw). I stacked them all on top of each other for dimension. “Dimension is life”, as 
A side look at that frame. You can see the colored cardstock from the sides, which gives such a fun look to a panel that is predominantly white.
I finished off my card with a white heat embossed Inky Wings sentiment on black cardstock. I also popped that up, because dimension really IS life. A few blue enamel dots from Papirdesign to get a tiny more blue in there to embellish.
There are two bundle packs with penguins. One has 
There were also five different packs of watercolor backgrounds released. I used the 
This little fox scene is from the Always Bring a Smile set, designed for My Favorite Things by Stacey Yacula. I really love her characters, they’re so full of life, and this little guy looks like he’s taking a well deserved nap against the stem of that big mushroom. I actually stamped this on Stamper’s Select White cardstock from Papertrey Ink and pulled out my Prismacolor pencils to color him in for day 2 of the current round of Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge.
I found some scraps of patterned paper in my stash (the red is from Pion Design, the tealy blue from Maja Design and the yellow from Chatterbox) and added them here and there on my card, before propping my panel with the cute fox onto the card front using foam tape. Lots of foam tape, I wasn’t shy! I stamped and white heat embossed a 
I added a few raindrops from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards around my sentiment and near those small yellow bits, and called it done. I had enough of those Maja Design scraps to make a matching envelope using the A2 V flap envelope dies from Simon Says Stamp.
I don’t usually do anything to the back of my clean and simple (it’s somewhat clean and simple, this one?), but I recently bought this 
I’m starting with a baby card. I made quite a few baby cards from this one sheet. Usually I make A2 size cards, but this image is so big that the card actually measures 5 x 8 1/2″. I used a knife and a pair of scissors to cut my image, keeping a thin white border along the edge.
I ran a piece of white cardstock through my 
The embossing folder I used is 6 x 6″. Since my panel was taller, I had to run it through from both ends. Along the seam I added a strip from another sheet of patterned paper from the same collection. The strip hides the seam and also acts as an anchor for the balloon image.
My goal was to use every little bit of the images on the one sheet, so I glued the left over branches to the inside of the card.
My second card is along the same lines as the first one. I used the bunny in the pink hot air balloon and the stars that are scattered around the paper on this one. This card is a little more narrow, measuring 4 1/4 x 8 1/2″. On the background I used 
I used a Papirdesign die set to diecut the word babyjente (baby girl). I diecut the shadow twice in vellum and the actual word several times using white cardstock. I put a few layers behind the vellum, making it look like the vellum is floating, and the rest of the layers on top of the vellum. Diecuts really pop when they’re layered like this.
Even though the card is simple, all the dimension makes it a little bit interesting anyway.
I glued on some sequins from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards on this one too. The leftover stars I glued to the inside of the card.
My next card is a simple birthday card. I’ve gone back to my regular A2 size with this one. I used the largest of the dies in the Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things and used an embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers to create a little bit of interest to my background. I glued the panel straight onto my pink card front, with no dimension this time.
I used 1 mm foam squares to glue my fussy cut flower to the front of the card. I stamped and white heat embossed a 
I finished off my card by gluing on some Pretty Pink Posh sequins in a sort of visual path from the bottom of the card near the sentiment all the way to the top rose. I always glue small embellishments like this close to other elements on my cards, it creates a better visual effect than gluing them far from everything else.
Card number four is a very different kind of card for me. When I started the process of making these cards I drew sketches for each card. The sketch for this one was for a portrait orientation, but when I actually started making this one I realized that the image was a landscape orientation, so I had to flip my sketch and change things around a bit. This image is quite large, so this is an A7 (5×7″) card. I had two sheets of the patterned paper, so I used the back of the second one to create my frame, and glued it to my cardbase using foam tape.
I added the flowers to my cardbase using foam squares.
I wasn’t sure what to do for a sentiment since I had to turn my sketch 90 degrees and make changes to it. The idea I had for the portrait orientation didn’t translate to a landscape orientation. In the end I chose to put my sentiment in the bottom left of my card. That’s not a spot I usually use for my sentiment, but on this card I thought it was the best placement. The sentiment itself is a 
A few Pretty Pink Posh sequins around the sentiment finished off this card.
My next card is another baby card. A square one, measuring 4 1/4 x 4 1/4″. No white border around the fussy cut bunnies, simply because the tip of the tail on the largest bunny intersects with a rose bud on the patterned paper, making me have to cut a little bit off his tail. Once that was done, I decided it would be best to cut right up to the edge of the rest of the bunnies as well.
The background paper I used on this card is part of the 
I finished off the card with some matte gold sequins from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. As usual when I add sequins to my cards, I glued them on near the sentiment. There’s another yellow bunny on the sheet of patterned paper, I fussy cut that one and glued it on the inside of the card.
The next card is a slimline card. I used a Memory Box stencil with some 
I glued the bunny to the cardbase with 1 mm foam squares and diecut Gratulerer (Congratulations) from Papirdesign multiple times from white cardstock, then glued them to a shadow made from colored cardstock (Fine Linen from Papertrey Ink). The stamped sub sentiment is from a Papirdesign stamp set (100 år), stamped in 
I finished the card by adding sequins from Pretty Pink Posh in a visual triangle. They’re all in close proximity to the sentiment and the bunny. Some of them glued on top of other elements, some of them tucked behind.
My next card is another regular A2 size card. I covered the cardbase using the same sheet of paper I used on the square card, only the reverse side. The small flowers are from that main sheet I’ve used throughout each of the cards in this blog post. These flowers were on the edge of the sheet, so they’re flat on one side, so I had to put them along an edge. I figured that this 
I made a white, dry embossed background on this card also and mounted it using foam tape. It makes the background a little less busy, and the little flowers I fussy cut a little more prominant. I stamped a 
I embellished with sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. This time in two clusters near the flowers to keep the focus on them and not so much the sentiment in the center.
The final card. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with this one. The feathers were the only images remaining from that one sheet, and I didn’t know how to use them in a good way and turn them into a nice card until I realized I could make a background from them. There was only one turquoise feather on the page, so I fussy cut the turquoise feather from the second sheet to get a good balance of color between all the feathers.
Embossing folder on white cardstock once again, and I created a pretty wide margin on the outside with this one. I usually like my margins fairly narrow, but I think this turned out good. I added my feathers to the dry embossed panel using 1 mm foam squares, cut off the excess and used those bits to cover the empty spots left behind in the corners.
The sentiment is from a 
Another Wednesday, and another Mo Manning creation. I’m trying to be better at using all the different images I have from Mo’s Digital Pencil, and I’ve kind of started at the beginning of the alphabet when coloring up previously unused images. I colored up this one for Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge back in June 2018, so it’s about time 
This isn’t exactly the easiest image to add to a card. I decided to stamp and heat emboss a couple of sentiments from a Huldra designstudio stamp set. The top one says Good luck… and the bottom one says “with new challenges”, which I thought was very fitting with the image. That red cardstock is Pure Poppy from Papertrey Ink, and I added foam tape behind both strips to create a little bit of dimension.
I added the colored image to the center of the card front and a strip of Kaisercraft patterned paper (P214 Periwinkle) on either side. I topped everything off with a few blue enamel dots from Papirdesign.
Papirmølla 