Season's Tweetings

The current Lawnscaping challenge is "Embossing." I'm trying to build up my stash of holiday cards now, to avoid the catastrophe I had last year. (Mailing cards on Christmas Eve morning, anyone?) So I decided to make a holiday card for my first card for this challenge.

I used Operation Write Home's Sketch #258 for my design:

I started by stamping the little birds and branch from Lawn Fawn's "Winter Sparrows" mini set on a scrap of Strathmore Mixed Media paper. I used Ranger Archival Jet Black ink for the birds, and Hero Arts Cup o' Joe for the branch. I colored the birds with my Zig Clean Color pens, and then die cut everything with the coordinating dies. I adhered the branch to a piece of light blue cardstock that I'd cut for the focal panel, and then glued down the birds.

The greeting in the stamp set is on one line, but I wanted it shorter, so my embellishment wouldn't cover it up. So I masked the "tweetings" portion on the stamp, and inked up "season's" with Archival Jet Black, then removed the masking tape and stamped it on my focal panel. I repeated the process, masking off "season's" and stamping the "tweetings" underneath.

For the snowflake, I used one of the dies from Spellbinders' "2013 Snowflake Pendant" set. I cut it out of white glitter paper, and set that aside while I worked on the background panels & banners.

I embossed another piece of blue cardstock with the "A2 Snowflakes" embossing folder by The Paper Studio. I cut my banner pieces from 3 patterned papers that I found in my scrap stash. After matting the focal panel, I determined how long to make the banners, and trimmed & glued them to the embossed panel. Then I adhered the focal panel to the background. For the snow, I used the bullet tip of my Versamarker and made dots on the focal panel, around the greeting, birds, & branch. Then I heat embossed the snowflakes with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder. Finally, I matted the embossed panel with a lighter blue, then matted that with a dark blue. I adhered the completed card front to a white A2 card base, and that finished this card!

I'm also entering this card in the August 2015 "Holiday" challenge at Live Love Cards.