2016 Holiday Card Series: Card #2

Hi ya!

Here is card #2, it is a little wintry scene of adorable critters! It could have easily been a one layered card but the thought of doing all that masking made me want to abandon my craft room. I really do love the effects of masking but I have to be in the mood for that.

The masking that I did took me four tries, I repeat FOUR! I am not afraid of redoing something, in fact, I am quite a fan of it. If I do a technique or anything for that matter and it doesn't look right to me I can't let it go, I have to redo it. Thankfully the rest of the card went very smoothly even though I admittedly was holding my breath as stamped the paw prints in the snow.

I used the stamp set Joy to the Woods from Lawn Fawn and the die set as well to create this card. I also used Lawn Fawn's Stitched Hillside Borders to create my snowy hills.

I truly enjoy using distress inks and blending with them and the colors "tumbled glass" and "stormy sky" making what I think is the perfect winter sky. This card was fun to make and as it came together  I was happy, happy, happy! All the little critters came out to be adorable and when I embossed my sentiment with white detail embossing powder also dusted the squirrel it made me think the little guy had just popped out of a hill and the landing of the embossing powder couldn't have worked out better. The inside of the card stumped me for a bit because I didn't want to add any bulk to the card but then my eyes landed on the paw prints stamp and boom! I decided to add a final detail to the card and added dots with my white gel pen to create the look of falling snow. (More breath holding, I'm lucky I didn't pass out while making this card!)

On to the next, if you are interested in these types of products so that you can make your own cards or other paper crafts head on over to scrappingforless.com it is a great website with wonderful prices!

 Don't forget to check out Fresh and Renewed for some more inspiration!


Wishing you sunshine and smiles,
Kim :) 

Birthday Series 2016 #3

Hi everybody!

I hope you are all having a fabulous day! The card I am showing you today was a bit of a challenge to me. I truly love the technique of masking an image and stamping on top of it so that when you remove the mask you have created an entirely new image. I also very much enjoy masking an image and using distress inks to create a background around said image and find peeling off the mask to reveal the unblemished stamped image highly satisfying!

All that being said...I get the steps backwards. Every. Time. I don't understand the disconnect with my brain or why I pretty much have to make a few trial runs before I get it right because I do this technique rather frequently. I tell you all this to give you hope and help you to not give up even if you do waste a little paper along the way.

I discovered Newton's Nook a few years ago but this is the first purchase I have made from Newton's Nook. I am smitten with this kitty cat!!! Newton's Nook had a great sale on Black Friday or Cyber Monday (I can't remember) so I jumped at the chance to grab some of the stamp sets I have been drooling over.

Let's get into it...I stamped the image of the cat clinging to the balloon and then went to add the party hat...that was the first time.

The hat looks like it is floating about the cat's head

I started again and that was the second attempt...

The hat STILL doesn't look the way I want it

At this point in time as I am working on this card I begin to ask myself "should I just let this go? Maybe masking isn't for me..." and then immediately think "No, I am not giving up I really love this technique!" I kept working at it and finally got the masking down in the right order. In the past when watching other card makers doing this technique I remember someone saying "always work back to front" as in reference to what you want to see of the scene you are creating. I hate that even though I knew that helpful hint it still took me FIVE attempts to get it right. It was totally worth it!

FINALLY! SUCCESS! I was so happy and proud and couldn't wait to tell the world that I had figured out how to mask! (Seriously it is super easy, I don't know why I make it so difficult, I think it just means I need to use this technique more frequently.)

Here are the steps:

1. stamp the image you want to see in it's entirety first
2. mask off the first image you stamped
3. stamp the next image, for this scene I was only working with two images so it really simple
4. now mask off both images 
5. add your background colors, I used distress inks to create the sky and the grass colors
6. peel off masking and color your image!

Ingredients for this card:

• Newton's Birthday Bash stamp set
• MFT Hybrid Ink Black Licorice stamp pad
• Distress Ink Minis- grass: Mowed Lawn, Shabby Shutters  sky: Tumbled Glass, Broken China
• Tim Holtz Distress Markers used to color image

This technique is perfect for a card that you know you need to mail since it's quite easy to make it a single layer card. Thank you so much for dropping by and I sure do hope that you give this technique a try.

Wishing you sunshine and smiles,
Kim :)