HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive | Christmas Stockings | Christmas Series #2

Hi Friends! Sharing some more homemade cheer that I created for the Hero Arts HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive. The cards collected by Hero Arts will be donated to the Bay Area Rescue Mission in December. I hope you find inspiration in this holiday card installment for creating your own cheerful, Christmas cards.

I started out by stamping the Hero Arts Fireplace stamp set’s three Christmas stockings onto a scrap piece of Canson XL Bristol Smooth cardstock using Lawn Fawn Jet Black ink since I was going to watercolor the images. I used the Zig Clean Color Real Brush watercolor pens in Light Green and Geranium Red to watercolor all three stockings. After they were dry, I used some smaller elements from the Spellbinders Christmas Blooms die set and die cut enough to add three or four pieces of greenery/blooms to fill each of the stockings – I glued those into place with Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress Collage Medium. Next, I applied a pretty thick layer of Distress Collage Medium to the top cuff of each stocking and generously covered the wet glue with Pink & Main Flock With Glitter in the color Sparkling Cottontail.

For the card front panels, the first one was cut to A2 size from some Christmas themed, patterned cardstock I had in my stash, and I cut the smaller panel out of more Canson XL Bristol Smooth cardstock using the second to the largest die from the Paper Rose Stitched Rectangles die set. Using Hero Arts Script Bold Prints background stamp, I stamped the image onto the smaller, white cardstock panel with Altenew Embossing Ink and applied Brutus Monroe Alabaster White Embossing Powder all over the inked panel, tapped off the excess, and used my heat tool to melt the powder. For the emboss-resist technique, I used Distress Oxide ink in Antique Linen and a blending brush and covered the entire cardstock panel with the Antique Linen ink. Once that was completed, I took a microfiber cloth to buff away the excess ink that was on top of the embossed background image. Next, I used a foam dome blending tool and Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink to add a small amount of color to the all the edges of the panel to add a bit of dimension and interest.

I used the Hero Arts Fireplace stamp set again and stamped the Merry Christmas onto a piece of Lawn Fawn Vellum with Altenew Embossing Ink and covered with Ink on 3 Gold Rush Ultra Fine Embossing Powder. I heat set the embossing powder and trimmed the strip of vellum to 1-1/4” wide and wrapped it across the bottom of the smaller, inked card front panel and simply taped the ends on the back side since they wouldn’t be seen by the recipient.

I created the swag across the top of the inked panel by using the small poinsettia die and both evergreen dies from the Spellbinders Christmas Blooms die set. I used red cardstock for the poinsettia and cut it twice from a scrap of red cardstock and die cut each of the fir dies from green cardstock three times for a total of six pieces. I glued the fir branch pieces to the card front, glued the poinsettia die cuts together and then glued them to the center of the fir swag. The final touch to the swag was to add a matte gold embellishment pearl to the center of the poinsettia.

To wrap this card up I attached the three stockings to the card front using Simon Says Stamp 3D Foam Squares and applied Simon Says Stamp Big Momma Foam Tape to the back of the inked panel and attached it to the plaid cardstock. I used some Christmas Red Stickles to the center of the red flowers in the stockings and Holly Green Pops of Color to the center of the pink and yellow flowers. I attached the card front to an A2, top folding card base and this piece of Christmas cheer is completed!

Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…

HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive | Warm & Cozy Wishes | Christmas Series #1

Hi Friends! To help spread some holiday cheer, I’ve joined the Hero Arts HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive so you’ll be seeing many of us creating additional holiday cards to support this effort and all the cards will be donated to the Bay Area Rescue Mission in December.

I started this card by loosely water coloring a piece of Strathmore cold press, watercolor paper with Tim Holtz’s Distress Oxide Reinkers in the Stormy Sky and Faded Jeans colors. After the watercolor panel dried, I used the Simon Says Stamp / Stampers Anonymous Stamptember 2022 collaboration release and only used the snowy stencil that was part of this set and applied the Ranger Distress Snowfall Grit Paste over the stencil to add sparkly, snowy goodness to my watercolor panel.

For the Christmas tree, I used the Sizzix Thinlits die set called Layered Christmas Tree (664712) and began cutting out my Christmas tree elements. I used two colors of green cardstock from my stash for the tree and Cardstock Warehouse’s Diamond Print Glitter White cardstock for the snow on the tree. After die cutting the green tree pieces, I took a blending brush and carefully edged the cardstock pieces with Altenew Crisp Dye Ink in the Mountain Pine and Moss colors to give them a bit of dimension. After the ink dried, I glued all the pieces of the lighter green tree parts and the snowy cardstock pieces to the Christmas tree base which made the cutest little Christmas tree for the card.

Using my Trinity Stamps Modern Embossed Rectangle Stack dies, I used the largest die to cut an A2 size piece of navy cardstock and next smaller size die in this set was used to cut my watercolor/stenciled panel so I would have a small navy border around the main portion of the card front. Once I glued those two elements together, I used the Avery Elle Slimline Borders die set and selected the rolling, stitched hill die to cut my snowy ground out of Cardstock Warehouse’s Diamond Print Glitter White cardstock and glued this element to the bottom of the card front. Then I applied the Simon Says Stamp 3D Foam Squares to the back of the Christmas tree and adhered it to the card front.

For the sentiment, I used the Spellbinders Glitter Wishes hot foil plate that said, “Warm & Cozy Wishes”, and the Spellbinders Silver Glimmer Foil to foil the sentiment to a piece of navy cardstock. I then cut my foiled sentiment and a piece of Cardstock Warehouse Stardream Silver cardstock into tags using the Spellbinders Swallowtail Tags die set. To complete the sentiment, I used three strands of DMC Diamant Silver (D415) metallic thread and fed those through the eye of the stacked tags and separated the two tags just a bit and used foam squares to attach them to the top of the card front.

Now I needed to complete my tree decorating. I used the Taylored Expressions’ Rainbow Rhinestones and glued various colors and sizes across my tree to represent ornaments. I loved that the subtle colors of these rhinestones didn’t compete with the snow background yet added a beautiful amount of sparkle and interest to the tree. All that was left was to glue the card front panel to a top folding, A2 size card base and this card was ready to go!

I hope you enjoyed this project and found inspiration to aid you in preparing your own holiday cards. Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…

Halloween 2022 | Project #8, Trick or Treat

Hi friends! Today’s card was inspired by a recent faux dip-dye watercolor technique I learned from Kristina Werner (IG: @starofmay, YT: K Werner Design). Kristina is an extremely talented card maker and has so many amazing techniques to share on her YouTube channel, if you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend you checking out her channel… AMAZING ARTIST!

I started by taping a piece of Strathmore Watercolor Paper to one of my hardboards using blue painter’s tape and gathered my watercolor paints, paint brush, and a cup of clean water to create the background for my card front. I used Kuretake Watercolor Paints (#31, #46, #47, and #20) and about halfway down the page began painting layers of the colors I listed previously beginning with a very watered-down version of #31 and dried that layer with my heat gun before proceeding to apply the next layer of paint. Each subsequent layer of paint is going to be darker and darker until I eventually ended up with black. Each layer must be dried before adding the next layer of paint. It’s such a fun painting technique – this is a link to Kristina’s YouTube video where she uses this technique to create a card: 🔴 EDITED REPLAY - Faux Dip-Dye with Watercolor (4 color combos) - YouTube.

Once my painted background was completely dry, I misted the entire panel with a couple sprays of Technique Junkies’ Iridescent Shimmering Bliss. Next, I used Trinity Stamps’ Modern Embossed Rectangle Stacks to die cut the panel and adhered it to a black, top folding, A2 size card base using Simon Says Stamps’ Big Momma Foam Tape.

To finish the card, I stamped the Trick Or Treat sentiment from Simon Says Stamps’ Handlettered Halloween stamp set using Altenew’s Embossing Ink onto a piece of black cardstock and dusted it with Ranger’s Silver Super Fine Embossing Powder and set it with my heat gun. I fussy cut the sentiment, applied foam adhesive to the back and adhered it to the card front. Card complete!

Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…