Polkadoodles

Hello!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. It really felt like Christmas here this year as we had lots of snow leading up to Christmas day and afterwards.  Temperatures have been bitterly cold, with wind chill feeling like -30C.  No warm up until around the 5th of January!

I still have a couple of Christmas cards to post, so I hope you don't mind that I share them even after the holidays.

This is a digital image from Polkadoodles.   I bought a few images from them, and this is the only one I had time to colour so far. They are so adorable.

After re-sizing I used prismacolour pencils to colour.  I then cut out the image using Spellbinders pierced rectangles.  The designer paper is a pack I bought from a Stamp store out of town.  There is no name on the cellophane, but I do know that it is from the UK.  I thought it went well with my image.

The 'holiday cheer' sentiment is from Penny Black, which I embossed in white on some black card stock.

To finish off I added some enamel dots, white flock to the hat and wink of stella clear glitter to the berries and stockings.

Thanks for you visit today!
Paulilne

Happy holidays from James & snowman

Good morning everyone! 3 more days till Christmas, it's hard to believe how fast December has gone.
Are you ready? I only have baking and groceries to do, so since I'm off today I think I will get started on the baking.

I still have a couple of Christmas cards to share.  I think this is one of my favourite  cards I made this season. I'm using LOTV - James - Snowman stamp. 

I used prismacolour pencils to colour. I cut it down to fit behind a red square frame cut from MFT stitched square frame dies.  Stripe paper is from my scrap bin, and the paper in behind is from Memory Box.

To finish off I added some white fun flock to the bears hat, TH rock glitter to the ground then went back in and added some Twinklets Diamond Dust in spots along the ground. I wanted to add a sentiment, tried different ways and ended up using a flag end wood veneer from Studio Calico. I stamped a sentiment from Power Poppys Simple Joy set - merry christmas - in black versafine. I then added a small veneer bird on top.   Used my wink of stella pen on both pieces of veneer to give it a bit of sparkle. Love it!  I didn't want to give this one away just yet, so made another for my basket.

Wishing you a wonderful day! See you back here soon,

Pauline

And the stockings were hung

Hello everyone! I'm back today to share another Christmas card.  I can't believe it's only a week away. We have had so much snow here this week it really does feel like Christmas.  We have had about 13-15" of snow this week, lots of shoveling! Yesterday we went to my brother Steve's place in London and our family had our Christmas together.  It was fun, lots of reminiscing, lots of food and laughs.

 Are you ready for Christmas - cards done, gifts bought, gifts wrapped, baking done etc?  I'm about 75% done, my cards are done and mailed (thank goodness), so all that is left is a bit of wrapping and baking, so I' feel pretty good about that. 

Although, don't you find, once you have your cards done for the year, you are still in the 'christmas card making mode", so you might as well continue working towards next years stash - (at a more relaxed pace),  I think that is what I'm going to do.

For my card today,  I'm using Power Poppy's Stocking from Snow Kissed.

Once coloured with Copics, I cut it out with MFT cross stitch rectangle.  I left the die in place and sponged some distress antique linen and a bit of soft sky around the edges.

I placed the image in my MISTI and stamped the sentiment - which I'm glad I used the MISTI because I ended up stamping this twice, to get a nice clean crisp impression.  The sentiment is from the Simple Joys stamp set.

Designer paper is from Fancy Pants - Saint Nick (2011). I also cut a couple of flag stax tags from the same paper using Simon Says flag dies. To keep the cross stitch pattern across the top I used the MFT cross stitch rectangle and cut just the top of the flags to it all lined up perfectly.  The red snowflake was cut from Poppystamps die - Ava snowflakes.

To finish off, I added a gold pearl to the center of the snowflake, some enamel dots, and used my wink of stella clear glitter pen for the presents and pom poms on the stocking.  I really love how this turned out!

Well, thanks for stopping by today. Enjoy your day, and if you are traveling, be safe!  See you back here soon.

Pauline

Once upon a star

Well, winter has arrived.  We woke up this morning with approx 6 inches of the white stuff, and it had a lot of moisture in it which made shoveling a bit hard.  But then the sun came out today, which melted the roadways.  It's very cold tonight feels like -19C with the wind chill (-2F). Brrrrrr..

So with that said, I thought I would share one of my snowman cards.  This is a digital image from Sassy Cheryl's - called "Once upon a star".

After re-sizing, I used prisma colour pencils to colour and blended with gamsol.   I then cut it out with a MFT die from one of the die-namics sets, left the die in place and sponged some SU soft sky around the top.  Then I thought what if I sponge some snow?? so I pulled out my snow stencil and sponged some snow dots using the same soft sky ink.

Background paper is from my scrap bin, and the strip along the side is from Echo Park - reflections christmas pack.  

I added a die snow drift piece along the bottom to kind of anchor him down, and by doing that I had to cut his scarf a bit  so I could lift it over the snow drift.

To finish off I had a snowflake on my work table, so sponged a bit of soft sky then add a red enamel dot to the center and placed it on the right side.  I felt it needed something to till in a bit of space. I then added some silver metallic twine before adhering everything together.

I also added glitter to the star as well as the snow dots and on the snowman.

That's it for this evening.  See you back here soon,

Pauline

Polar bear express

Hi Everyone.  I finally got around to taking pictures of my cards that I made over the last couple of weeks, so lets get started.

I must confess, the image below has been stamped out a couple of years ago and I did start to colour the polar bear and that is far as I got with it.  So was going through my bin of partial projects and found this one.

Image is from Crissy Armstrong over at Whimsy Stamps.  I'm not sure of the name of the image, I don't see on their website anymore.  So as I was trying to think of a name for my post, my daughter Karen suggest 'polar bear express', so that's what I went with.

I used prismacolour pencils to colour.  I debated on whether or not to die cut the image or leave as is.  I tried many different die cuts for along the top and bottom.  I ended up using an MFT stitched hill die for the bottom and Memory Box Frostyville border for the top.

Background paper is from Basic Grey Nordic Holiday collection (another oldie).  I tied some plaid ribbon across the top and tied a bow

Along the hill I added some sparkle by using some Twinklets Diamond dust - love this stuff, a little chunky but very sparkly.  I used my wind of stella clear pen for along the frostyville border to add some shimmer.  I also used my white pen and added some polka dots to the penguins scarf for some extra detail, and some fun flock to the brims of the hats and pompom.

So there you have it.  Isn't this image just so sweet?

Thanks for visiting.  Keep warm if you are experiencing winter where you live.  We had our first snowfall today, a couple of centimenters, but then the sun came out and melting most of it away.

Till next time,

Pauline

A Berry kissed blessing

Good morning.  Now that we are into December (which is hard to believe), the crunch is on for getting my Christmas cards done.  I have many more to go - how about you, are you still behind as I am, or nearing the end?

I've always admired a lot of the designers who create using the Penny Black brush stroke images. They seem so realistic, so I thought I would give it a go, after that's why I bought the stamp, so lets get started!

I'm using Penny Black's Berry Kissed cling stamp for my card today.

I started with Canson 140lb watercolour paper, and placed it in my Misti.  I then placed my stamp on my paper where I wanted  to stamp my image, closed the lid (to pick up the stamp on the other side), then started my project.  I used several colours of distress ink markers to do this, and unfortunately i did this one last month, I did not keep track of the colours.  Basically, I would colour the stamp - I started with the leaves first, huff and stamp, and would continue to do this until I reach the coverage and depth I was looking for.   Then I moved on to the branches then the berries. I kept the paper in my Misti, then took a paintbrush and blended out the colours a bit for better coverage, let dry, the added a bit more ink to the stamp for a bit more darkness in places.  Again, heat set to dry, clean off your stamp good, then add versamark to the stamp and stamp over your coloured image.  At this point you can remove the paper and add clear embossing powder and heat set.  I then cut out the image using MFT stitched rectangles from on the blueprint sets.

Now, that this is heat set with clear embossing powder, I can continue to do the background and the colours will not bleed or smear as the clear ep has sealed the image. I was going to watercolour the background but instead I just used some distress inks and a blending tool to do so.

I then put my image back in my Misti, placed my sentiment where I wanted it and then stamped.  I stamped a couple of times to get a nice dark impression.

It still needed something, so I water downed some white paint I had and flicked on the snow.

I couldn't of done this technique without my Misti.  I have so many more brushed stroke images to try this technique with!

Thanks so much for coming by today, have yourself a wonderful day!

Pauline