Two Holiday Cards

This is the fifth year for the Caring Hearts Card Drive, to collect cards to distribute to nursing home residents who might not otherwise get holiday cards. I made these cards to send in.

I began my first card by die cutting a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper with the smaller of Mama Elephant's "Femme Frames" dies. I stamped the cardinal and one of the greetings from this set by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps on that. I taped the panel to a cutting board that I use for watercoloring, masking off the area around the faux stitching lines to create a mat. After coloring the image with Inktense pencils and a damp paintbrush, I blended Tumbled Glass Distress ink over the background, being careful not to go over the cardinal.

I die cut a piece of dark green cardstock using the scalloped frame die from the "Femme Frames" set. I blended Antique Linen Distress ink on the front of a white A2 card base, and finished by matting the focal panel and adhering that to the card base.

For my second card, I chose this sketch by Operation Write Home:

I created the focal image by combining the "Snowman Birdie Feeder" image from Dearie Dolls Digi Stamps with the "Snow Globe Gala" digital stamp set by Doodle Pantry. I colored the image with colored pencils, blending the colors in the base & topper of the snow globe with Gamsol on a paper stump. Finally, I inked around the edges of the panel with Chipped Sapphire Distress ink.

I cut a piece of patterned paper from my scrap stash to 4.25x5.5", and adhered it to an A2 card base. I had to cut the 3 strips of navy cardstock slightly wider than indicated in the sketch, to accommodate the snowflake buttons. I adhered the strips and the focal panel to the card front, and glued the buttons down with Ranger Multi Medium Matte.

I'm entering both of these cards in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes" challenge.