Christmas: I heart books

This card was created on 15th November; day 15 of The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge.

I love this stamp set by Sandy and I’m so glad I managed to finally get it to the top of my “to be coloured” stamp pile. At this time of year my mind is firmly fixated on making innumerable Christmas cards and this image lent itself perfectly to creating a chilled Christmas scene.

How:

I originally thought I would try to make a one-layer card and to that end I die-cut the tree from fun foam so I could use it as a stamp. It actually worked surprisingly well, but once it was inked up I discovered that I preferred the look of the coloured foam over the stamped image. So, I put the masking paper back in the drawer.

The background is a piece of partially glittered cream patterned paper. I blended Distress ink over it to turn it into a glittery green patterned carpet and a dusky pink wallpaper (enhancing the effect by adding some stencilled texture over the top of the wall part). Then I glued it flat to a red card base.

For the tree, I coloured all the edges of the foam with a green Sharpie to match the ink-dyed top and found a scrap of patterned paper to put behind it. I cut a piece of foam to create the pot for the tree and coloured that with a purple Sharpie.

I stamped the main image, coloured it with Copic markers and fussy cut it out. I used a fine grey Copic multiliner to add some texture detail to her hair, which worked really nicely.

The tree was glued in position on the background and the girl and chair were positioned in front of it, popped up on foam tape where needed. The star was die-cut from some silver card and added to the top of the tree.

I stamped the sentiment, die-cut it with a small tag shape and added a small piece of ribbon. The stamped shelf, popped up on a tiny strip of foam tape, made a great place to prop up the sentiment.

The last thing I did was decorate the tree with some jewels I have had sitting in my drawer for ages. With the light at the right angle they positively glow, far more effective than I expected!

Challenges:

The Daily Marker 30 Day Colouring Challenge

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Three Room Studio – I heart books
  Lawn Fawn – merry messages
• dies:
  Tim Holtz – festive scribbles
  Waltzingmouse Stamps – stitched tags
• stencils:
  Memory Box – scraped paint
• inks:
  Distress ink pads – shabby shutters, spun sugar, Victorian velvet
• pens:
  Sharpie – green , purple
• Copic markers:
  chair – E13, E15, E17, E18, E44, E47
  skin – E04, E21, E00
  hair – C5, C10, BV08, grey multiliner 0.05
  top – R35, RV29, R39
  leggings – N1, N3, N5, T6
  book – W00, W1, W2, W3
• embellishments:
  Papermania – adhesive stones – red
• paper and card:
  Neenah solar white 216gsm
  First Edition Paper – paper pad – gilded winter
  Papermill Direct – sandgrain – silver
  Hunkydory adorable scorable – robin red
• miscellaneous:
  fun foam