Merry and Bright

I've been participating in Online Card Classes' "Holiday Style" this week. The theme for Day 5 was Cute & Whimsical cards. Laura Bassen had a lesson on using masking to create a scene with cute critters on a one-layer card. I based my card idea on hers.

I used Mama Elephant's "Arctic Penguins" stamp set, with the coordinating greeting set, "Jolly and Merry." I began with my penguins, doing the one on the left first. I stamped the hat on my A2 card base, using Memento Tuxedo Black ink, then masked that and stamped the penguin. By masking the hat, it makes it look like it's right on top of the penguin's head. I stamped the middle penguin, and then the Santa hat for the right hand penguin. I masked that hat, and stamped the penguin, then masked him and stamped the present he's holding. I then stamped the greeting, again using Tuxedo Black.

Leaving the masks in place, I die cut another piece of masking paper with one of the "Snow Drifts" dies, from My Favorite Things. I adhered that to my card, then inked the sky with Faded Jeans & Salty Ocean Distress inks. Before I removed my masks, I taped the "Falling Snow" stencil from Simon Says Stamp over my card. I smeared Golden Light Molding Paste over the stencil. When I had the coverage I wanted, I carefully removed my stencil, and scraped the dots of paste off that were covering the greeting. I sprinkled Ranger Holographic embossing powder over the wet paste, removed my masks, and let the snowflakes dry. After the paste had dried, I used my heat tool to melt the embossing powder. This gave it dimension & a bit of sparkle.

Because of the "sketchy" nature of the penguin stamps, I decided to color them with colored pencils. I used the brightest colors on the hats, skates, & present. I also added a little light grey to the white areas on the penguins, just for a bit of shading. Finally, I colored the "ice" area with a pale blue pencil, and this card was done! I'm sending this card along for the Caring Hearts Card Drive, to go to a resident in a nursing home.