In traditional colors

Hi, Janja here!

Today I share with you a holiday card in traditional Christmas colors. The card layout is simple and will not take us a lot of time.

For the card we need:
- white card base: 4.5 x 5.8" (11,5 x 14,7 cm), folded
- gold mirror paper: 4.25 x 5.5" (10,8 x 14 cm)
- patterned paper: 4 x 5.25" (10,2 x 13,4 cm)
- white cardstock
- red paint with blow-up effect
- Distress ink: Festive Berries, Moved Lawn

We prepare cutouts with the dies: elegant deer & wreath, Merry Christmas Santa, tea time doily, holiday wreath and the largest die from circle set.

Shadow both wreaths with Distress inks. For a super blow-up effect apply an inflatable red paint with handy pen on holly berries.

Fasten red patterned paper on to gold mirror paper and mat them together on to white card front. Add all the cut-outs as shown in the photo.

This luxurious gold paper has a highly reflective surface of the mirror. When taking photo, I had quite a few problems. Wherever I set up, I saw my reflection.

Thank you for watching. 

Christmas Cardinals + Background Technique

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.

The Design Team has been bringing you some fabulous samples with the new CottageCutz Christmas 2016 dies.  I hope you are being inspired to start thinking about your Christmas cards. I love Christmas time and all the festivities that go with it.

And, I love making Christmas cards. I usually send out around 60 handmade cards each year. I am always on the lookout for cards that can be mass produced. That is where I am taking you today. I am showing a card that would be easy to make a lot of for card giving.

So let's get started with the details on my project.  I am also showing a technique that I tried for the first time and just love the outcome. It's a resist technique requiring just a few simple steps to create a shimmery background. I thought it would be perfect as a backdrop for the Christmas cardinals. It reminded me of a snow squall. I found this tutorial on Splitcoaststampers. Basically here is what I did.

Turquoise Card Base: 5 1/2" x 4 1/4"
Background Panel: 5 1/8" x 3 7/8"

Technique: Faux Mother of Pearl
1.  You need some metallic white paint. I used DecoArt white pearl dazzling metallic.  You use cling wrap and crumple it to use as the applicator for the paint. You will need to use either a craft mat or paper to protect your work surface. This technique gets a little messy. 

2.   I squeezed a small amount of the paint on my craft sheet. Dip the plastic wrap into the paint and pounce it on the craft sheet a few times to work it into the cling wrap and also to remove excess paint. Then you tap it lightly onto your cardstock. Repeat this step until you have your cardstock covered. I left some open area on my cardstock because I wanted the look of snow.

3.  Once you have applied the paint where you want it, set your cardstock aside to dry.

4.  Now it's time to start adding your ink. You can use a sponge, blending tool or even a brayer. I used a sponge on my cardstock. The ink color is turquoise.

5.  I applied the ink all over my cardstock. As you are applying ink your metallic design will start showing through.  The paint will resist the dye ink. Once you have the look you want, take a paper towel and buff the cardstock to remove the ink that is laying on top of the acrylic paint. Then you will see more of the metallic paint design. This creates your faux Mother of Pearl design.

I created several of these backgrounds and it was tough getting a good picture. This background  I didn't use on my finished card but it was the one that cooperated with my camera.

6.  Now that the background is prepared, I decorated it with the Cardinals and Birdhouse dies.  The Merry Christmas sentiment is from the Christmas Santa die set. I used multi-matte adhesive, and dimensional adhesive to attach the die cuts.

 

Well, that's it for me for another week. I hope you have been inspired to give this technique a try even if you aren't making your Christmas cards yet. And. don't forget our birthday challenge is still running until 8-31-16. Get details here.

 

Until next time........inky hugs!

 

 

 

 

Winter Scene in the Ornament Bulb

Hi, Vladka here!

It is such fun to play with Christmas dies and today I have this card for you:

Let's go to basics first:

White card base: 4 1/4 x 6 inches (cut 4 1/4 x 12 inches, fold in half)

Additional piece of white cardstock and some white and light blue cardstock for die cuts and back side of the ornament.

Other Supplies:

CottageCutz Dies: Listed Below

Other: Paper trimmer, Sizzix machine, Scor-buddy, White watercolor in tube, paint brush, fun foam, green and brown copic markers

1. First prepare card base and use the biggest Bulb Ornament die and cut it out of additional piece of white cardstock. You will need the negative piece, but save the ornament bulb for the next project. Do the same with piece of fun foam, which should be slightly smaller as additional piece of white cardstock. This is our base.

2. Cut the snow hill, Deer and Forest scene out of white cardstock and prepare also piece of blue cardstock for next step.

3. Let's go on with background. Take piece of light blue cardstock and some white watercolor and paint brush. Mix white color with a small amount of water. With paint brush, flick some droplets on the blue cardstock and let it dry.

4. Color the trees and the deer with green and brown copic markers:

5. Put some white watercolor on the piece of dish sponge and drag gentle over the Winter scene:

6. Use double sided tape and glue snow hill on the backside of the additional piece of cardstock so that it will be visible true the bulb hole. Glue also Deer and Forest scene on the backside of the fun foam so that it will also be visible true the bulb hole.

6. Now glue fun foam on the back side of the additional piece of white cardstock and blue piece of paper on the back of fun foam. Glue everything on the cardbase, which is already prepared beside.

7. With Build a Bow die, make bigger bow and glue it on the top of the bulb. Flick some white droplets also on the finished card:

8. Finished the card and glue everything on the cardbase and add also the Merry Christmas die cut. If you want, you can add also piece of acetate between additional piece of paper and fun foam and make shaker card out of it.

I hope you like this card. Have fun creating. And don't forget, fifth CottageCutz challenge is waiting for you. This time theme is BIRTHDAY CARD. You can linked your project here. And please, use only Scrapping Cottage dies.

Christmas Tags

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.
The Design Team has been bringing you some fabulous samples with the new CottageCutz Christmas 2016 dies.  I hope you are being inspired to start thinking about your Christmas cards, thank you notes as well as Christmas gift tags.
 
That was a lead in to my project for today. I decided to make a couple of gift tags with these new dies. So sit back, relax grab some coffee or a cold drink while I walk you through my creative process this week.

For the first tag I used the Winter Cabin Border and the Ornament Trio dies.

To create this tag, I used the CottageCutz Rectangle Die-the largest one in the set. I then stamped the background snowflakes with Versamark ink and embossed with white embossing powder on my light blue cardstock.

 I didn't want to have a square topped tag so here's what I did to make a pretty tag top. My rectangle base is 3" wide,  so I needed a die wide enough to only cut the top of the tag.

 I placed the cardstock so the side edges are not on the cutting edge of the die.

 

 Now on to decorating the tag. I cut both the Winter Cabin Border die and a single ornament from the Ornament trio dies in white cardstock.

 

 

To complete this tag I punched a hole at the top and ran my blue ribbon through. I tied it with silver cording. I attached my ornament, added a pearl to finish the tag off.

 

 

 

Now onto my 2nd tag. For this one I used the Merry Christmas Santa die. I cut my tag in red cardstock, found the patterned paper I wanted to use and cut my Santa image.  I also used the Stitched Circle Dies and cut a circle with the 5th largest die to position Santa in the center of it.

I added a little snow mound at the bottom of the circle for Santa to stand on. For the mound I used the sand from the seagull die. Just another way to get additional use out of your dies. I used glue and sprinkled some chunky glitter on the snow mound.

I used the same glitter and added it to Santa's hat, belt, arm cuffs and hat.

To complete this tag, I stamped a sentiment on olive cardstock and cut it in a flag shape. I embossed the sentiment to make it stand out on the tag.  I added white ribbon and tied it with red striped ribbon.

Thanks for staying with me through the entire post this week. Hope I gave you some ideas for your own Christmas tags. Don't forget about our current challenge going on for August. The theme is birthday and you can get more info here.

 

See you next week.........until then sending inky hugs!