WINTER WONDERS

It's time to break things up a bit with a Christmas/Winter card. I'm playing along with the Peace on Earth Christmas Challenge #114. 

This card is a bit more traditional than my usual cards, but it was fun to do. I love cardinals, which we don't ever see on the west coast. I love seeing them when I visit my brother in West Virginia. I've had this old Stampendous rubber stamp for a very long time - I think I might have used it once in all these years. I stamped it with black ink on white card stock and then colored it with Copic markers. I trimmed it to a square panel to attach to a 5-1/2" square card base that was already sitting on my desk. Before matting it with red and attaching to the card base, I gold heat-embossed the sentiment and edge. After all of this, I wish I hadn't added the blue circle behind.  

Peace On Earth Christmas : Peace on Earth Challenge #114

MID-WINTER NIGHT

This  morning when I opened my computer, the screen wallpaper was a beautiful evening photo of a snowy village in a valley of the Alps. It was predominately blue, and it inspired me to enter three of the current challenges, using my favorite tiny house dies from Alexandra Renke. I'm entering Time Out Challenges #305: Favorite Card Making Technique; Color Hues #125: Blue and White; and Inkspirational Challenge #359: Shades of Blue. WOW!

My favorite card making technique (besides CAS) is constructing tiny landscapes using layers of dies and paper scraps. I've done many of these miniature scenes over the years and I have a special fondness for tiny houses. The background of this scene is a last small scrap of a favorite Christmas paper that I've been hoarding to use for the perfect winter sky - when I say 'small' I really mean it! This scrap barely filled the opening of my 1-5/8" x 2-7/8" rectangular die. The layered trees are from a Tim Holtz "Forest Shadows" die that I cut and pieced.

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge #305

Added February 14, 2026:

Color Hues: Color Hues Challenge #125 - Blue and White

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #359 - Visual Prompt - SHADES OF BLUE

WINTER WISHES

It's a three-day weekend here in the US and I'm easing into the weekend with a bit of cardmaking. There are a couple of  challenges with winter-like themes and it's quite cold here in my part of the country, although I doubt there will be any snow. My inspirational challenges for this card are Just Us Girls #758 - Mood Board and Inkspirational Challenge #333 - Word Prompt "Snow".

For the image I started with the center photo of the JUGS mood board of pine cones, boughs, and snow. I cut out some dies I've never used before from both Spellbinders (#S4-1135 "Christmas Blooms") and Tim Holtz (#666715 "Vault Festive Wreath"), using a bit of woodgrain kraft cardstock, brown, and a couple of greens. I die cut a scrap of white and green printed paper with a stitched rectangular die, mooshed on some green ink at the top, and matted it with some green cardstock. After stamping the sentiment at the lower end in dark brown ink, I arranged the pine cones and boughs and glued them to the panel. I prepared a top-folded card base by blind embossing snow on the top portion of the card and cutting and embossing an additional stitched rectangle. I glued all of the layers together and set about trying to figure out how to get the snow and then remembered that I have a jar of molding paste that I've never opened yet, so I applied some of that with a Tim Holtz stencil and shook on some glitter before it dried.

I think this photo shows the molding paste and glitter a bit better than the one above. Also, the woodgrain of the kraft cardstock shows up really well with this close-up photo: 

"Just Us Girls" Challenge: Just Us Girls Challenge #758 - Mood Board Week

Added January 23, 2025:

Inkspirational: Inkspirational Challenge #333 - Word Prompt - SNOW

BE A DEER

My old friends over at The Paper Players are playing with a theme challenge from LeAnne - "Be a Deer" and I thought I would like to join them in the fun. I have only one item in my stash with a deer and I dragged him out for the first time this season, although he has been a mainstay of my collection of winter/holiday creatures for several years. I love deer and it's actually quite an amazement that I don't have any others in my stash anywhere.

I'm really partial to square format cards, so square it is! Since my little deer is whimsical I wanted to use papers and shapes that were less realistic than LeAnne's lovely blue and white image. I opted for a very old light blue polka dot paper from my stash, die cut it, and attached it to a white 5-1/2" square card base. I selected a darkish blue and turquoise polka dot card stocks to die cut with Tim Holtz's "Forest Shadows". I layered these on the lighter blue and then added a couple of layers of white edge-stitched snow drifts and an Impression Obsession sentiment and attached my little deer.

The Paper Players: PP718 - A Theme Challenge from LeAnne 

WARM HUGS

BTW, how the heck did we get to December so soon? Last week I commented on a stamp set that I have that has several small holiday images - this is the second one from the set from Hero Arts (#CM386 "From the Vault - Winter Joy"). I'm joining Inkspirational's Mood Board, where at the bottom right part of the board is a little village of houses with a black sky and stars. There are so many appealing images in this mood board that I may have to enter this challenge more than once! 

This card is a bit more complex than it appears at first glance. I started it by stamping the image twice - once on black with white heat embossing and once on white with black ink. I colored the white image with Copics, fussy cut it, and glued it over the black sky and tree. Then I die cut a small scrap of white cardstock with a stitched "cloud" outline and stamped the sentiment with PTI "Fresh Linen", glued it to the black stock, and die cut all of the layers with a small stitched rectangular die. I die cut a white cardstock panel with a larger stitched rectangle and then die cut a stitched opening in it. I used an embossing folder to emboss the snow and assembled all of the layers onto a black card base. I wanted a bit of sparkle, so added three rhinestones to the stars in the sky.

Inkspirational: Challenge #330 - Mood Board

Added December 21, 2024:

 And because I haven't used this particular stamped image before, I'm also sharing it with NBUS:

NBUS: NBUS Challenge #69