CottageCutz: Snowman Christmas

Hello Scrapping Cottage friends! Thanks for taking the time to stop and visit today. It's Mary Marsh here bringing you the Wednesday edition of the Blog.

It has been so hot and humid in the Eastern U.S. so I thought I would create a card to cool you off (lol)! So today for your viewing pleasure, I am featuring a card using some of the new dies from the brand new CottageCutz Christmas 2016 release. I used the Snowman w/Lamp Post & Merry Christmas Ribbon dies.

All the new dies are available in the Scrapping Cottage Store right now and they are 25% off for a limited time. The design team will be featuring the new dies in our blog posts for inspiration. It's not too early to start thinking about your 2016 Christmas cards and design.

So without further ado let's get started with some details on what I have created here today.

White Card Base: 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"
Blue Striped Pattern Paper: 4 1/8" x 4 7/8"
Dark blue layer underneath: 4 1/4" x 5"
Blue Snowflake Layer: 3 1/4" x 4 3/8"
Image Panel: 2 3/4" x 3 1/2"
I like making Christmas cards with non-traditional colors. It helps to take me out of my comfort zone and stretch my creativity. I also like the look of using diagonal stripes on a Christmas card.

I started off with my layout this week. It's an older MojoMonday sketch. I have said before that I like working with sketches because it also helps to jump start my creativity. Especially when I have the dies in mind that I want to use. I like the challenge of getting my idea to fit into the confines of the sketch. I did take some liberties with this sketch and eliminated the small diagonal panel on the bottom right.

Once I had the all the card panel sizes figured out, I decided to use a stencil to create a snowflake background for my snowman. I did this with some 3-D molding paste to give the snowflakes a little dimension.

I use painters tape to secure the stencil. It holds the stencil in place well. When I am finished I just lift the tape on the right side only and remove the stencil.

I cut the snowman in white mixed media paper because my original idea was to watercolor and then I switched and decided to do some paper piecing and die in-laying. I liked how this little fellow turned out. I inlaid his buttons. eyes, nose and mouth.

The lamp post is part of this new die set. I cut it to match his hat, scarf and little ornament. The snowbank is included as part of this set. It's just too cute. Don't you think?

In place of the 2 banners in this sketch I used the Merry Christmas Ribbon die. I like the look of it in the corner. This is thick enough so you only need to cut one layer. I used ranger multi-matte medium to adhere it. Like this adhesive because it dries clear.