Hello happy crafter friends! It’s Tonya from Krafty Enchantments.com. How is everyone? Hope you’ll all having a great week so far. I’m back today with another fun Dare 2B Artzy card featuring some of my favorite stamp sets again. This week I’m playing with the Penguin Fun and Snowflake Wishes stamps. It really doesn’t matter what time of year it is, I love snowflakes and that’s where this card begins.
I’m a huge fan of Etsy for crafty and unique things. My friend and fellow Dare 2B Artzy Design Team member, Tasha tagged me in a post a while back featuring some unique, custom made water colors that were available on Etsy. I was immediately struck by the vibrant colors and of course the shimmer and sparkle, EEEEKKK! All things sparkly, right? I placed my order and waited patiently for my water colors to arrive.
I got them and had to play. Of course all my favorite colors were included in the 6 bottle set. I knew I wanted to create a wintery background using the pink, purple and blue colors.
To start, I cut a piece of Canson water color cardstock to 5 x 6. I added some water to my cardstock so that my colors would move more freely. I placed a couple of drops of color into a mixing pan and added a bit of water to it and started to play. I dropped color onto my cardstock and let the water move it freely. The colors were pretty subtle at first so I added more layers of color until I was happy with the background. I was able to let it dry and go back in and layer in more colors later which I really liked.
Once I was happy with the color for the background, I set it aside and let it dry fully.
With my background completely dry, I added in the lovely snowflakes from the Dare 2B Artzy Snowflake Wishes stamp set. Using my MISTI, I positioned the various sizes of snowflakes around my background and then closed the door on the MISTI to pick up my stamps. I brushed my background with an anti-static powder tool so I wouldn’t have any embossing powder where I didn’t want it on my background. I inked up the snowflakes generously with some Versamark ink and stamped once and then inked and restamped so that I could get a good impression. I sprinkled on some extra fine, silver embossing powder and heat set it.
At this point, I was unsure if I would use the entire background or a portion of it with my card so I set it aside so I could work on the other images for my card.
I pulled out my Penguin Fun stamp set and decided to use the adorable penguin in the sweater. I just love the idea of a penguin wearing a Christmas sweater, don’t you? So cute!
I stamped the penguin, sled and 3 of the trees from the Penguin Fun stamp set onto a scrap piece of 110lb Neenah Solar White cardstock using my Dare 2B Artzy Totally Black ink. Love this ink as it’s Copic friendly and won’t bleed when coloring with my Copic markers. I stamped all of the images a couple of times to get a crisp black outline since I knew I would be fussy cutting the images out since I don’t have the dies for this particular set.
Once everything was stamped, I was ready to color. I pulled out my new favorite combo for Christmas which is a red and a light blue-green combo to color the sweater on the penguin. I kind of think of this as a retro color combo. I colored the penguin body with a light blue around the edges and then added the orange for the beak and feet.
I colored the sled with a series of browns and then colored the trees with some non-traditional teal greens and added in some varying colors of bulbs on the trees. I fussy cut all of my images and started laying them out on my background to see how I wanted to arrange them.
Ultimately, I decided not to use the full watercolored snowflake background. I cut the piece down to 4 x 5 and then used an edge die from my stash to cut the scalloped border. Using some dimensional foam, I added a piece of white glittered cardstock behind the die cut piece to create a snowy ground look. I love the sparkle because it reminds me of how real, untouched snow glistens in the sunlight.
I positioned my trees on my background first with some dimensional foam and then added in my sled with my penguin riding on top.
For my sentiment, I stamped the Merry Christmas from the Penguin Fun stamp set with some Versamark onto some white cardstock and used some purple embossing powder and heat set it. I trimmed it with fishtail flags on both sides.
For a finishing touch, I added some sequins to my card panel for a little extra sparkle.
Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you’ve enjoyed my fun, wintery Christmas Card featuring the Dare 2B Artzy Penguin Fun and Snowflake Wishes stamp sets.
Hugs
Tonya
