Merry Christmas

This is my second card for Christmas Card Throwdown's "Bears" challenge. I used Sketch #SC609 from Splitcoaststampers.com for my design.

I stamped the bear from the Essentials by Ellen "All Inside" set onto a scrap of Strathmore Vellum Bristol paper, with Ink on 3's Fadeout ink. I also stamped the cat, hat, & tree from "Bear Ware 2" with the same ink. I went ahead and die cut the bear before coloring. The die is solid, so positioning can be a bit tricky. I did have a template I'd made from scrap cardstock to guide me, but I still figured it would be better to die cut first. That way, if I messed up on that, I wouldn't have wasted a lot of time coloring. Thankfully, it die cut well the first time! :)

I colored all the images with my Prismacolor colored pencils. I added white gel pen to the cat's whiskers where they overlap his face, & just traced over the parts that extend to either side with a grey pencil. For the tree branches, because they were so tiny, I just traced over the stamped lines with a sharp green pencil. Finally, I die cut the remaining images. I added glitter to the star on the tree with a Spectrum Noir Clear Glitter Overlay pen. I also applied Marvy Snow Marker ink to the brim & pompom on the hat. That puffs up when you heat it with a heat tool, though I had to add a second coat, since it didn't puff up enough for my taste.

I chose patterned papers from The Paper Studio's "Woodland Wonderland" 6x6" pad & my scrap stash for the background & layers. To keep the papers from blending into each other too much, I inked around the edges of each with Forest Moss Distress ink. Then I adhered everything to my white A2 card base.

I stamped the greeting (also from "Bear Ware 2") on vellum bristol with Lawn Fawn's Doe ink. I adhered that to my card, and glued on the cat & bear overlapping the greeting strip. I glued the tree in the bear's arms & the hat on his head, and that finished this card.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge: "Anything Goes"
Creative Knockouts Challenge #317: "Anything Goes"