CottageCutz: Let It Snow!

Hi, Lois here with some exciting news. It's time to show off a brand- new CottageCutz Christmas die. Just arrived in the The Scrapping Cottage store is Part 1 of the new 2018 Christmas dies -- and they're 25% off for a limited time. The card I made for today uses a cute one called Snowman Lane.

Once again I pulled out my little book of Sketch Challenges from Splitcoaststampers and used Challenge 120, which gave me a nice big panel for my snowman scene..

Last week when I was in Michaels, I saw some packaged card bases and envelopes in various sizes. I picked up two packages of 5 x 7 cards, one with silver trim and one with black trim. I chose one from the silver-trimmed package for my card. Along with the card base, I cut some cardstock and patterned paper as follows:

Silver gray cardstock - 4" x 5 1/2", and three pieces 2" x 4 1/2"

White cardstock - 4" x 5 1/2" (which will be trimmed down to 3 3/4" x 5 1/4"

Striped patterned paper - three pieces 1 7/8" x 4 3/8"

I then die-cut my images from a piece of white cardstock. Look at all those pieces!

After I colored the various pieces with Copic markers, I constructed my snowmen and their accessories and set them aside.

I used a favorite technique for a snowy sky on the 4" x 5 1/2" piece of white cardstock, which uses masking fluid and a toothbrush.

I placed a strip of washi tape along the bottom of the cardstock because I wanted the bottom to remain white. After dipping the toothbrush into the masking fluid and tapping it against the bottle to get most of it off, I splattered it onto the cardstock by tapping the toothbrush against my finger. I repeated the process until I was happy with the result.

After letting the masking fluid dry, I sponged on two shades of distress blue ink (Tumbled Glass and Chipped Sapphire) over the whole area . . .

. . . and then removed the washi tape and brushed off the masking fluid with my finger. Voila! A snowy sky! I trimmed off the edges where the ink was heavy from the sponging.

I then layered the patterned paper onto the gray strips and adhered them to the card base.

I created my little snow scene on the white/snowy panel and stamped a sentiment in the corner. The street sign wasn't really big enough to write Snowman Lane (the name of the die) on it, so I just wrote Main St. with a white gel pen. By the way, the die also has a pair of ear muffs, which you could substitute for a hat on one of the snowmen. There are also some small "snowflakes," which I chose not to use because of the created background.