Penguin Family Christmas

Good evening folks.

Well December is here and I am so not ready for Christmas, in whatever guise it comes in this year! Anyway the overseas cards have been posted and most of the others too, so that's one job ticked off, still the shopping is still to be done!

As it's a new month we have a new challenge at HLS CAS. Here's my take on the new cue card.

Love these cute LOTV penguins and they were prefect for my daughter and SiL's Christmas card as Joe loves penguins and they have two lovely boys.

Once printed off, I coloured with Copics, blue and white for Nich and red for Joe, the other two coloured to match. The sky was also Copic coloured but with a sponge and re-inker. Added to a 5 x 7 white base card, a Uniko sentiment stamped in blue and a few strips of twinkly blue glitter paper later it was complete.

For more Christmas Character inspiration check out the DT here and then why not join in? Please keep your card CAS though!

Color Hues #31

 Good afternoon, as it's the 1st of the month there's a brand new colour combo from Color Hues which is the last one of the year. 

As it's December and we know you are all going to be busy, so we are leaving the link open until Dec 29th. We have a lovely festive colour duo for you too but you don't need to go down that route, here's my take using the retired Uniko Pure Florals Poinsettia, I must try to persuade Bev to reissue this beauty!! 

I apologise for the picture quality but the light was playing up when I needed to take the photo!

This large image is a dream to colour. For this card, I embossed in gold EP then washed in colour using my Zig watercolour brushes. To get the depth of colour, I used 3 shades of both colours and a brown-grey for the shadows on the leaves. The center of the 'flower', the actual flowers of the poinsettia, were coloured with a gold glitter pen as I wasn't allowed to use yellow, it's not one of our colours or neutrals!!!

The bold greeting is also from Uniko and is embossed using gold EP. My panel was trimmed when the image was complete and added to an A6 side fold note card.

So where will you go with this latest combination? We'd love to see what you make of our colours in the gallery. For more red and green inspiration, check out our GD and the rest of the team here.

Why not link your celebratory red and green creations to the Uniko challenge  as well.

STAMPlorations December Challenge

 Good morning. A new month, so a brand new challenge at STAMPLorations Theme and Photo. Here's my take on the new cue card.

Using the theme, I used the single candle stamp from the Kathryn's Big Wishes stamp set and some paper piecing to create this festive array. All the candles were stamped onto a panel of white card and then repeatedly again onto a piece of striped DP I found at the bottom of my Christmas paper box. It was part of a set from over 10yrs ago so no idea of the make but I also had some coordinating plaid from the set left too which I used to back my base card. I quite like the more subtle colours used in the striped paper, including lots of festive elements, Christmas puddings, not used, candy canes and stockings, snowflakes, ornaments, holly as well as plainer stripes. Before adding the paper piecing, I coloured the candle flames with Copic markers.

I started off trying the camouflage technique with the Season's Greetings Phrase Die but didn't like the effect so added a further plain white Season's Greetings over the top. It would have been so much easier and taken a lot less time if I'd decided to do that straight off!!

So that's my take, what's yours? We'd love to see your ideas on the cue picture and theme in the gallery.

For more inspiration, check out the rest of the DT here.

Enjoy the Season

Good morning, time for a new challenge at Cardz4Guyz where our theme is:-

SHADES of BROWN

I went with a vintage feel for my take.

The LOTV image was stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa and then coloured with Copics using the E group. Snow was added with a white pencil crayon.

The finished image was trimmed and then added to a 4" x 4" cream base card. The greeting, from Altenew, was also stamped with Rich Cocoa.

A very simple, masculine card.

For more masculine inspiration check out the rest of the team here.

Joining in over at:-

Use a hand stamped or digital image

Uniko Challenge

Morning all. It's time for a brand new challenge at Uniko.

Here's my card based on the twist this time.

Its a very simple card, just a couple of stamped holly leaves and berries from the Winter Foliage stamp set and the matching dies. the leaves were stamped on green card and although the veins showed up to begin with they had faded by the time I took the photo! The berries were stamped with red on red and then some Glossy Accents added on top.

From a panel of red card, I cut a curve using an Avery Elle set and knocked back the colour with some Rusty Hinge and Barn Door DI around the edges, before adding it to a white, A6 note card. The thread is 1/3rd of a strand of twine as it was too thick originally. I made a rough bow and glued it to another die cut set of berries. The leaves were added and then sandwiched by the glossy accented berries and glued along the edge of the join after I'd stamped the greeting from Christmas Sentiments.

So where will the theme take you? We'd love to see you in our gallery. For more inspiration please check out the rest of the team and our GD here. 

Joining in over at:-

Stencil Monoprint Penguins

 Morning, I've another Christmas card to share with you today using a mono print from a stencil.

I was pleased to see that this month's CAS Mix Up was to use a stencil to make a mono print, I had loads of them after playing around with my Gelli plate for my bauble backgrounds here.

Here's what I came up with.

My monoprint was made as a bi product of the Gelli plate process. After inking up the plate with Picked Raspberry DI and laying down the stencil, Let it Snow from Uniko, and taking a print, the stencil has lots of ink on the surface and being from Yorkshire I had to use rather than waste all that juicy ink. So on some scrap white paper, I laid down the stencil and pressed all over with my hand and some kitchen roll to mop up any seepage!

I love the smooth effect you get doing it this way compared to direct inking to stencil which can get a little blotchy and the small details tend to get lost. It even picked up some marks from the Gelli plate left from a previous experiment which reminded me of falling snow.

Always on the look out for a challenge combo, I added these two cute penguins, found in my odds and ends box, coloured with Copics and fussy cut. I cut away the background as it wasn't needed and added back the snow drift with some scraps, all framed with a leftover from my bits box. The sentiment is from Woodware.

Joining in over at:-