Snowman and stars

In an effort to make Christmas card making as low stress as possible, I picked up the Winter Flurries Collection from Polkadoodles — four stamp sets, four stencils and a lovely pack of paper (some of which isn’t overtly Christmassy). And that, along with a couple of dies that caught my eye, is all I’m buying for Christmas crafting this year. (The only exception might be a digi stamp for my mum’s card, but I have no idea what I’m going to do for that yet.)

This particular card is a rescue card. I started it as part of the design process for my “come up with five designs for small batches of cards” plan, but quickly realised it wasn’t appropriate for that and put it to one side.

I had drawn around the stencil with a grey multiliner so the obvious thing was to colour it. I used clear Wink of Stella for the snow and Zig real brush markers for everything else. And I hated it. And I smudged it. I always smudge Zigs.

But I wasn’t going to let it beat me; there had to be a way to rescue it. I got out my acrylic paints and painted it, filling in the gaps between the parts of the stencil, and just leaving the Wink of Stella on the trim on the hat. Much better.

I added the silver stars in the background — I only like lots of white space when other people do it — and mounted it on a card base. Then I stuck the die-cut sentiment across the bottom, but it looked a bit plain so I carefully painted snow on the tops of the letters and a drift along the bottom.

It’s not my favourite Christmas card of the ones I’ve made recently (though that one was also made using this stencil), but it’s definitely going in the “to be sent” pile and not the bin. Though I may have to add a couple of sequins and hide that smudgy bit on the left stick of holly…

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Polkadoodles – winter flurries
• dies:
  Lil Inker – merry Christmas
• stencils:
  Polkadoodles – snowman sentiments
• pens:
  Copic multiliner – cool gray 0.3
• colour:
  Dylusions acrylic paint
• inks:
  Delicata – silvery shimmer
• embellishments:
  Wink of Stella – clear
• paper and card:
  Strathmore Bristol 300
  Hunkydory Adorable Scorable