Snowy Penguins

Usually by this time of year I have all my Christmas cards more or less sorted. Not this year. Not even close! I suspect this will be a year when some of the old, store-bought, cards up in the loft may need to supplement the handmade ones (oh the horror!). Oh well, if you get a hand-made card from me this year, you are in the top tier of my favourite people. I'm confident in writing that on the blog as I suspect of all the recipients of my Christmas cards, only my Mum reads this blog.

Today's card was inspired by the colours over at Color Throwdown and the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches. I'm also linking up over at Crimbo Crackers where Anything Goes. 

Card and patterned paper: white 200 gsm card, scrap of aqua Stampin' Up card, Lawn Fawn Let's Bokeh in the Snow, Hobbycraft 190 gsm white card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Snow Cool and matching dies

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics

Other: Papermania Silver embossing powder, Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside border dies

25 Days of Christmas Tags - STAMPlorations

I'm super excited to be part of the 8th 25 Days of Christmas Tags event. This event is organised annually by the wonderful Tracey McNeely of In My Creative Opinion. 

This event has become one of the eagerly awaited pre-Christmas crafting events as you can see from the quality and quantity of sponsors. Designers from each sponsor team share Christmas tags from November 1st to 26th and hopefully you will be inspired by one (or some, or many!) of these to create and link up your own tags. 

As you can probably guess, today is when the STAMPlorations team get to showcase our tags. You can find the tags of my fellow team members, along with the previous posts of this event and the linky on Tracy's blog.

For my tag I used one of my favourite winter themed stamp sets, STAMPlorations Winter Chill. I can't resist those cute penguins. I die cut a tag using CUTplorations Stitched Tags Nesting Dies from watercolour card and inked the aurora in the sky using Distress Oxides. After letting the ink dry, and thoroughly dabbing with my embossing buddy, I heat embossed the grungy snowflakes in glitter emossing powder in the sky.  I used CUTplorations Stitched Snow Hills on a shimmery white card to create the undulating snowy hills. I stamped the penguins, igloo and snowman and coloured them with Copics before fussy cutting and arranging into the wintery scene. Last, I heat embossed the sentiment in white powder onto black card and added some ribbon from my stash.

Card: 300 gsm watercolour paper, Neenah Solar white card, scrap of black card

Stamps: STAMPlorations Winter Chill

Dies: CUTplorations Stitched Tags Nesting Dies, Stitched Snow Hills

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Versamark, Versafine, Distress Oxides, Copics, Signo white gel pen

Other: White and glitter heat embossing powder

STAMPlorations discount code: If you want to save 20% when shopping at the STAMPlorations store you can use the code STAMPGIRLKAROLA at checkout. The discount applies to all normal priced and discounted stamps, stencils and dies. The code cannot be combined with other discount codes.

Penguins In The Snowy Night

This weekend I just withdrew into the craft room. It's my place of safety, comfort and re-charging the batteries. It's been a tough week, and quite a rollercoaster weekend. But when I surround myself with my stamps, dies and inks I feel like none of the bad stuff can touch me. I love how I can completely lose myself in the crafting for hours at a time. 

I love starting my crafty session with a browse of the the current challenges. This time I absorbed inspiration from the current sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches as well as the gorgeous inspiration image over at Inspired By All the Small Things. I'm also linking up over at House of Cards where the challenge this month is Create a Scene and Just Add Ink where the theme is Just Add L (I used L for Layers, I hardly ever do add as many layers as I have here.)

I started by creating the starry night sky using smooshing. I started by inking up my craft mat with yellow and green Tim Holtz Inks, spraying and smooshing my watercolour paper. Then I started building dark blue and black, adding some layers of yellow and green again from time to time, and drying between some of the layers. When I had reached the look I like, I dried the background completely and splattered with white acrylic paint. As I thought the sky actually looked more like a snowy than a starry sky I thought I would go down the winter scene route although the weekend has felt very much like spring.

While the acrylic paint was drying I stamped, coloured and die cut the penguins and built the little scene. I then die cut the background papers and adhered everything in place. I added some gold Wink of Stella to some of the yellow bits in the sky, but it doesn't show in the picture. In real life it adds a nice little sparkle to some parts of the night sky. Last, I added some more white splatters with my gel pen, as the Picket Fence splatters dried quite faint in some parts of the sky. I love how the smooching technique just turns out so random, and you never know what you will get.

Card: 250 gsm white card, 190 gsm watercolour paper

Ink and colouring: Tim Holtz Distress inks Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, Chipped Sapphire, Black Soot, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics, Tim Holtz Distress Paint Picket Fence

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Snow Cool and matching dies

Paper: Stampin' Up Christmas 2013 paper (sorry, can't remember the name), Lawn Fawn Let's Polka in the Meadow

Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle Dies, Stitched Borders dies, Stitched Hillside Border dies, Signo white Gel Pen

Penguins and Snow Penguins

Today I have been colouring and die cutting penguins. I was probably inspired by being freezing cold all day yesterday. My birthday gift for the Culinary Consultant was a full day of ski school at the Snow Zone in Milton Keynes. So I spent a lot of the day in the very cold cafe at said Snow Zone watching him do really well. I also took a walk across the street to the giant shopping centre, but I realised I really suck at the whole shopping thing as I didn't buy a thing. Apart from a Krispy Kreme. Ok, that's a lie, as I bought two Krispy Kremes. Then I went back to the ice cold cafe to watch the skiing and spent a small fortune online-shopping for crafting stash. Looks I'm good at shopping, as long as it's the right kind of shopping.

Today's card was inspired by the image over at The Challenge, the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and I'm also linking up over at Crimbo Crackers where the theme is Snowmen, although I'm assuming a snowpenguin fits the bill also.

Card: 300 gsm white card, dark blue Vanguard card, scraps of burgundy card, Neenah Solar white card

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together, Snow Cool and matching dies, Winter Unicorn 

Ink and colouring: Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark, Copics

Dies: Lawn Fawn Scripty Merry, Stitched Hillside Borders, Snowy Backdrop 

Other: Papermania Seafoam White

Holly Jolly - Feathered Friends

The last two weeks have just flown by, and it's already time for a new challenge over at Holly Jolly. Thank you to everyone for sharing your gorgeous Christmas Carol inspired creations, we love to see what you are creating, and it's good to see there are already lots of people getting prepared for Christmas. I chatted with a friend the other day and she said she can't even bring herself to use the "C-word" yet, but still she was already getting a head start with her C-cards. Crafters, eh? Lol.

Anyways our new challenge over at Holly Jolly is Feathered Friends. So get your crafty on with some Christmas themed Feathered Friends and link up with us. In addition to comments from our DT you will be in the running for some great prices from our sponsors who this week are Bugaboo, All Dressed Up, Stamp&Create and Crafty Sentiments.

 

This time I got to play with the Bugaboo stamp Winter Penguin Trio. I have to say, I love the challenges where Bugaboo is a sponsor as I absolutely love their cute digi stamps. I had so much fun colouring the Penguin buddies playing in the snow. I used Tim Holtz distress markers, and for the sky I blended the markers with some water for a watercolour effect. For the background I used Stampin' Up Irresistibly Yours Speciality Designer Series Paper. It comes with various resist embossed patterns, and you can colour it to your liking. In my case, I got to try out two of my new Tim Holtz inks on it, BluePrint Sketch the July colour and Twisted Citron, the new May colour. I used Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies to cut the images and the Lawn Fawn Tag You're It die for the banner. To finish, I added a bit of paper twine to the tag. I love the deep blue starry sky behind the Penguin buddies, I really love this new colour from the great Tim Holtz.

I am linking up with the following challenges:
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - Anything Goes
Christmas Stampin' All Year Long - Anything Goes
A Gem of a challenge - Animals or birds
Crafty Friends Challenge - Inspired by a movie (Madagascar, the penguins are my favourites! Cute and cuddly!)
Fussy and Fancy Friday Challenge - Things with wings
Crafting From the Heart - Anything Goes 
Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Make a Plan (planning for Christmas!)
Card: 300 gsm white card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card, Stampin' Up Irresistibly Yours Speciality Designer Series Paper
Inks: Tim Holtz distress markers, ink pads Blueprint Sketch, Twisted Citron, Tsukineko Staz-on Jet Black
Stamps: Bugaboo Winter Penguin Trio, Dovecraft Clear S'Jingle TTS
Other: Lawn Fawn Stitched Rectangle dies and Tag You're it dies, Tim Holtz paper twine