Make Today Amazing

The theme for Send a Smile 4 Kids' final challenge for 2014 is "Winter Fun 4 Kids." So I decided to create a couple of cards for that challenge, which I will send on to them. This is the first of those.

I got my inspiration from this video by Tracy of Tracy Mae Designs. I used the same basic idea, but tweaked it a bit.

To get started, I stamped my little penguin from "Winter Penguin" by Lawn Fawn onto a scrap of white cardstock with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. Then I colored him in with colored pencils, blending them with Gamsol on paper stumps. After cutting him with the coordinating die, I set him aside while I worked on the background.

I created my greeting using 2 stamps from My Favorite Things' "Simply Fabulous Sayings." After die cutting a piece of white cardstock with the largest of Lawn Fawn's "Small Stitched Rectangles" dies, I positioned my greeting stamps on that. I picked them up with my Fiskars stamp press, and stamped them in Versamark. I used Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder to heat emboss the greeting. I stamped the snowflakes from "Winter Penguin" and Lawn Fawn's "Winter in the Park" over the upper portion of the background, and white heat embossed them as well.

After masking off a border just outside the faux stitching on the panel, and a portion for the "ice," I blended Salty Ocean, Faded Jeans, Dusty Concord, and Chipped Sapphire Distress inks over the sky area. I removed the masking that I'd put across the panel to preserve the bottom portion, and masked above that line. I blended below that with Tumbled Glass Distress ink, and went around the edges with Broken China to add some depth. Finally I removed all the masking. I ended up going over the greeting with a white gel pen, since the embossing powder had not coated the letters thoroughly, allowing some spots of Distress ink to show through.

I decided I wanted some snow drifts at the horizon, so I die cut 2 pieces of white cardstock with one of the dies from the "Landscape Trio" set by Mama Elephant. After inking the tops with Tumbled Glass, I glued the shorter one on the front of the taller, and glued them to the background. To complete my little scene, I adhered the penguin with foam tape.

I die cut a piece of dark blue cardstock with the largest die from Lawn Fawn's "Large Stitched Rectangles." I adhered the focal panel to that, and adhered the completed card front to an A2 size card base.