Christmas, New Year and Winter

So many merry snowmen

Hi there!

I fell in love with Mama Elephant’s ‘So many Snowmen’ stamp the moment I saw the sneak peak on Instagram and snapped it up as soon as I could! I can’t believe it landed on my doormat a week ago and I am only just getting round to stamping it up!

Anyway, it was just as fun to colour as I imagined. I used my Twinkling H2O paints and also my Nuvo Aqua shimmer pen and this card is so shimmery in real life! The die is from Mama Elephant as well and I used ‘Christmas’ from a Simon Says Stamp set.

I’m going to enter this into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge – anything goes.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG

Merry Making – Wrap Up Day Coloured Cards

I love that Online Card Classes always include more techniques on their wrap up days and this class was no different! I will be trying them all at some point and will hopefully update this post when I do so.

In the meantime, I chose to start with Kelly Latevola’s card where she combined distress oxide inks with coloured pencils! Parts of this card were totally outside my comfort zone (loose water colouring, anyone?) but I totally loved making this!

I used the gorgeous W Plus 9 Christmas Rose stamp and a selection of my favourite distress oxide colours. It was fun to watercolour with them. I loved the effect created after the distress oxide was down, and was quite nervous about the coloured pencils, but I like the effect – more practice needed again, of course, but still great fun!

I finished off the card with some splatters of gold perfect pearls and sentiments from Simon Says Stamps!

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Merry Making – Day 5 Holiday Watercolour

Hi there

Day 5 of Online Card Classes’ Merry Making Class was all about Holiday Watercolour. More fabulous techniques, all outside my comfort zone and all bar one using supplies I didn’t have.

So I chose to follow Debby Hughes’s card for this day of class as I had a Molotow Masking pen…. Luckily I decided to test it before I used it and it seemed to have turned into a permanent blue pen! Argh. I really wanted to follow Debby’s techniques so I adapted it a little and created the snowy background using clear embossing powder and the emboss resist technique instead of masking fluid!

The background was a real challenge for me – I prefer to create backgrounds by blending ink, but I knew I had to give the watercolour background a go. I’m glad I did – I still need more practice!

Anyway, I masked some Avery Elle penguins to create the main image (they are so cute, aren’t they) and embossed a sentiment from the same set to finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Merry Making – Day 4 Holiday Die Cutting

Hi there!

I had been looking forward to Day 4 of Online Card Classes’ Merry Making class – Holiday die cutting. And it did not disappoint!

First up is my take on Jennifer McGuire’s background die gatefold card. Rather than use a detailed cutting plate, I decided to make a scene using dies from memory Box, Taylored Expressions and Tim Holtz/Sizzix. I guess it ended up being a hybrid of Jennifer and Nicole Spohr’s card (100% die cutting!).

I must say the timing for this card idea is perfect as I just discovered a load of pre-scored gatefold cards which I’ve had for YEARS! Now I have a great way of using up that cardstock!

My second card for this post features the technique demonstrated by Julie Ebersole – hidden die cut! I first tried this technique in March and I love it!

I decided that the Simon Says Stamp/Avery Elle Stamptember set would be perfect for this. I coloured the image using my Twinkling H2Os and some white paint. The stamp is from an older Hero Arts set and the die is by Mama Elephant.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Merry Making – Day 3 Non-festive stamps

Hello there!

Day 3 of Online Card Classes’ Merry Making class was all about using non-festive stamps. This day was quite challenging for me because I have SO MANY festive stamps- I’m usually trying to think of ways to use them in non-Christmas cards! But I have accepted the challenge!

Kristina Werner demonstrated an abstract background using an abstract triangles stamp and Christmas colours. I don’t have any abstract stamps that lend themselves well to this technique so I pulled out one of my new Simon Says Stamp background stamps and coloured it with my Nuvo Markers. It took AGES! I couldn’t bring myself to splatter gold paint on it after all that painstaking colouring so I moved onto the next part of the card – using sections of the stamp to create an embellishment. My first thought was to use the larger leaves to create a tree, but that didn’t really work well so I used them to create a poinsettia.

Thanks for stopping by!

LucieG.

Merry Making – Day 2 Holiday Stamping Techniques

Hi Everyone!

Day 2 of Online Card Classes’ Merry Making class focused on holiday stamping techniques and again three different teachers demonstrated fun techniques.

This is my take on Shari Carroll’s paint resist card. It turned out much pinker than I was intending! I use Seedless Preserves as well as Abandoned Coral distress ink! Honest!! The trees are from an older Hero Arts set and I used a Penny Black snowman die and a Neat & Tangled sentiment.