Decking the Halls--Penguin Style

Aud Sentiments challenge blog's theme for their current challenge is "No Sentiment on Front of Project." Yes, it does seem a bit odd for a sentiment challenge blog, but there it is! :) I created my card for Christina Hor's holiday/winter card drive for children in the Heart Center at Nationwide Children's Hospital. This card inspired my design.

I knew I didn't want to die cut my penguins (from Mama Elephant's "Arctic Penguins" set). No great earth-shattering reason--I just like to make things harder for myself every once in a while! :) I created masks for the penguins, and used those to help me decide where they would go on my panel. I stamped the hat first, and masked it. Then, using my MISTI, I placed my top penguin, picked it up with the door, and masked off the feet. The penguins in this set are wearing ice skates, which I figured would be kind of difficult to balance on, standing on top of each other. So I just stamped everything--but their feet--with Hero Arts Black dye ink. After I stamped my first penguin, I masked him, stamped the middle one, masked him, and stamped the bottom penguin.

I don't have a suitable Christmas tree stamp, so I went looking online. I found one on Free Stock Photos' website that looked like it would work. I scanned my panel with the penguins stamped on it into my computer, and opened that in Photoshop. I opened the tree file in Photoshop, and moved it to the file that had the card panel. I sized & positioned it, and (digitally) erased the star & ground lines, since they wouldn't work with my design. Then I printed just the tree onto my panel.

After drawing my penguins' feet & a tree stand for the tree with a pencil, I traced over those lines with a fine-tip black pen. To color everything, I used my Prismacolor colored pencils. Usually, I color like my light source is from the top right. But, when coloring the tree, I happened to notice that the highlights on the ornaments are on the top left. Thankfully, I hadn't colored very much, and was able to adjust with no problem. I colored the tree stand like an inverted whisky barrel, and added a horizon line & some snow/shadow lines on the ground with a light grey pencil. I punched a star from silver glitter paper, using a Recollections punch, and glued it so it looks like the top penguin is going to place it on the tree. As soon as he can reach it, of course! :)

To finish my card, I first die cut the panel with the largest of Lawn Fawn's "Small Stitched Rectangle" dies. I also die cut another A2-size panel with a Lawn Fawn "Large Stitched Rectangle." I adhered the focal panel to my mat, and mounted that on my white card base. To help the penguins' eyes pop, I added tiny drops of Ebony Black Nuvo Crystal Drops. I also added white gel pen to the highlights on the ornaments, and coated them & the star with Glossy Accents. And that finished this card!

I'm also entering this card in Die Cut Divas "Anything Goes" challenge.