Woodland Christmas

I've seen a few cards on Pinterest featuring a silver birch style background which I really liked.  So I bought myself a birch tree background cutting die and made my own version. I really like how it turned out.

I started with an A6 plain white card blank.

For the background I used Distress Stains in blocks of colour (from top to bottom: Chipped Sapphire, Wilted Violet+Broken China and Broken China).  I simply swiped the stain across the card in stripes, overlapping the colours in each block for a smoother transition.  Wilted Violet on its own was too purple, so went over the top of it with Broken China to get more of a blue hue.  I also dotted Chipped Sapphire across all three colour blocks in several places, which also helps to blend the colours.

I die cut the birch tree trunks from white card and lined the die cut up with the top and sides of the card over the coloured background.  The die cut did not reach all the way to the bottom so I cut a couple of snow mounds from white card and placed them at the bottom of the card, then went over them with a Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen for a glistening snow effect.

The deer are from the Tattered Lace Family Outing die set.  I cut them from white card and coloured them using Spectrum Noir markers, going over the spots on their backs with a white gel pen.  I stuck the doe straight on to the card and used foam pads for the fawn.

At this point I decided to add some snowfall to the scene by dotting snowflakes onto the background using a white gel pen.

Finally, I stamped the sentiment into the corner.  The stamp I used is from a set that came with issue 35 of Creative Stamping magazine.

Three Looks, One Die

I love background dies and the Tattered Lace Grandma's Garden panel die is really pretty.  There are loads of techniques that are great with background dies, but here are three simple ways to use it.

1.  Cut it out of Kraft (or other coloured) card and affix to a white card blank.  Stick a die cut sentiment also cut from Kraft (or other coloured) card on to a white oval and then affix both on to the background with foam pads.  It's really simple but it looks great.

2.  Die cut a panel out of plain white cardstock and place it over a coloured background.  In this case I created a vibrant background using alcohol markers, but you can use inks, watercolours, pan pastels or whatever medium you like.  I placed a white die cut sentiment onto a piece of coordinating card stock.  The white against the vibrant background helps to tone it down.  This is a great technique to use with busy background papers too.

3.  Die cut a panel from plain white cardstock and colour in the different elements, then affix to a card blank.  In this case I used pastel shades and a Kraft card base.  The pastels and Kraft work really well together.

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Glamour Puss

I've been coveting the Tattered Lace Glamour Puss die that came with one of their magazines ever since I first saw it.  I finally caved in and picked up a back issue from eBay a couple of months ago.  Inspired by one of the sample cards on the Tattered Lace website I made this:

Isn't she fabulous?! The stairway die is also by Tattered Lace, from the Essentials collection.  I used plain white card and coloured the vertical faces of the steps using a Spectrum Noir light grey marker.

The Glamour Puss die itself cuts out all the detail in the dress, but I wanted to keep it in so I taped across the back of the die cut before removing it from the die.  I used a black Spectrum Noir marker to colour the dress then went over it with Dovecraft Crystal glitter glue.  The black highlighted all the green elements in the glitter glue, giving the dress a beautiful emerald shimmer.

I used a gold pen to highlight her jewellery and gave her some hot red lipstick, black hair and a matching clutch bag.

The wallpaper is damask patterned paper.  Next time I would use a paper with a smaller pattern, but overall I like the effect.

Geometric Shards

A little while ago I was helping my mum to clean out her garage and I came across a load of my old school books and folders.  One of the things that I used to love to do was to decorate the insides of the folders by sectioning the space into squares or triangles and then colouring them in.  I made this card shortly afterwards, inspired by that memory.

How are You? geometric pattern card

I used Spectrum Noir alcohol markers; BT5 using the chisel tip to create the outline and PL2, PL4, PL5, LV1 and LV3 to colour in the triangles.  I happened to have some card that matched the turquoise marker colour almost perfectly, which I used for the card base.  The sentiment is from an old sticker collection by American Crafts which has been in my stash for years!  I added the faux stitching around the perimeter to help it stand out more.  It just goes to show that you don't always need stamps, patterned papers and fancy dies to create a striking card.