Christmas Card Club - Nativity Cards

 Welcome to another Christmas Card Club share.  It's Nativity cards this time and I've used the retired stamp set called Peace to You.  I stamped the image onto a piece of card and then fussy cut around the top which looks sort of stable shape and then I hand tore the bottom of the image.  I matted this onto a layer with soft blending brush ink and then onto a deckled rectangle die cut.  

The image itself is stamped in navy and then I used Stampin' Blends to colour the remainder of the image. The sentiment is from the same stamp set and stamped simply onto a piece of card which I snipped at both ends.  Simple, but the message is clear.  

Enjoy touring the other ladies in the Christmas CC and come back to visit again soon. 

Thank you 

Zoe x

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Peace to You at Christmas - Stampin' for Christmas Blog Hop

 

It's been a while since I join this fun blog hop so welcome to my blog and happy countdown to the festive season.  

Today I'm sharing a simple card made using the beautiful stamp set Peace to You.  Peace to all is what we all hope for I'm sure.  

To create the card I have stamped the church image onto basic grey card and heat embossed in white.  I used the stitched rectangle dies to cut out the image and added faux red linen ribbon, bakers twine and a flat jingle bell to showcase the simple sentiment.  This card was very popular at my Christmas card buffet. 

It is easily reproducible so a great one for lots of makes to send out for Christmas.  The stamp set will retire very soon and is available on the last chance list.

I'm also sharing this fun little Robin handmade Christmas card.  For this design I used the Songbird builder punch to create a Robin using kraft card with sponging and a red card for his distinctive red breast.  I've then used the Sweet Songbird stamp set to stamp the branches, musical notes and his feet so that I could then stamp with the holly and berries from the Christmas Banners stamp set retiring soon and reduced in the winter sale. 

This card is easy to make too and requires a little punching with the Songbird punch and then simple stamping.  To create a little detail on the Robin you can use a sponge dauber or blending brush to add a darker shade to the kraft card. I punched the beak out of early espresso card, but you could blend onto the kraft card for this too.  

Use up those papers that we all hoard to add a pretty background matt layer.  

Enjoy the hop and check out the Stampin' Up! sale where there are discounts of up to 60% on stamps and dies.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a great December.

Hugs Zoe x

Supply List Shop Link 

Peace to You stamp set

Christmas Banners stamp set

Sweet Songbird Bundle

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Masking Technique for Totally Techniques Stampin' Up! Blog Hop

 

 Welcome to our Totally Techniques Stampin' Up! demo blog hop for July.  We are sharing masking techniques.  I've used the new masking paper found on page 149 of the Stampin' Up! annual catalogue for my share and this stunning Snow Crystal stamp.  Snow seems a long way from our thoughts right now, but we've had a Canadian scout stay with us this week and he shared pictures from his home in Ontario which along with the fact that I couldn't resist sharing a touch of Christmas in July is why I have a Christmas card for you. 

The masking paper comes in sheets (12.7 x 17.8 cm) and has low tack glue on one side once you remover the backing paper.  It allows you to mask of anything you don't want to stamp on or get ink on.  You can  do so many things to create overlapping flowers, stripes or anything that grabs your imagination really.  I cut strips that were 1 inch (2.5cm) wide and placed them around the edge of a square piece of white card.  As I was going to use a blending brush to create my red square before adding them to the card I took off some of the glue as my brush might have pushed too hard and it could have made it difficult to remove the  mask.  You can reduce the tackiness of the glue by very gently putting the sticky side on your jeans, or forearm and peel it off. Just be careful with anything fluffy. 

 

Once my strips were in place I used a blending brush to first add some Sweet Sorbet ink followed by Poppy Parade and then a touch of Real Red to keep the central area bold.   Once I was happy with the colour of my square I carefully removed the masks pulling them at an angle to help reduce the risk of any tape not wanting to come off.  This produced a fab neat edged square.  I used my heat tool to dry off the ink all over the piece before doing an embossing powder test to be sure that the powder would only stick to the snowflake once I had stamped it.   As soon as it was dry and safe I stamped the Snow Crystal stamp in VersaMark ink over the square and added gold embossing powder.  Sometimes with embossing such a large image you can get powder fuzz but to avoid this you can use an embossing buddy which you can get in our embossing additions tool kit.  

I heated the powder and wow what a great snowflake!  I added the stamped layer to a layer of Real Red card and then matted the artwork onto a Shaded Spruce card base.  

A simple, elegant sentiment embossed in gold was all I needed to finish the card.  

I also created this card using Starry Sky and Night of Navy ink.  I've added a layer of copper foil card embossed with the Timeworn Type 3D folder and  off set the matt layers. 

Enjoy the hop x

Keep safe and keep stamping

Zoe x

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Snow Crystal 

Timeworn Type 3D embossing folder

Embossing Additions Tool Kit

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Smooshing technique - Christmas Card Club

 Happy Sunday dear crafty friends.  Another Christmas  Card Club share today and our theme is Anything Goes which worked perfectly for me with this card I made this week to use the 'smooshing' technique and some fabulous star dies and I have been wanting to use this fun sentiment.  

So smooshing if you haven't tried it is fun and depending upon the colour or colours you use can create so many different backgrounds or papers for die cutting stars like this.  I used a combination of Balmy Blue and Misty Moonlight re inkers and put drop over a new cutting plate from my die cutting machine, but you could use your Stamparatus plates, a glass matt or even a page protecter from a lever arch type folder.  

Drop ink drops onto your chosen base and then add some water using a spritzer.  Then take a piece of watercolour paper and pick up some of the ink with different places of the paper.  You can mop off any excess and use a heat tool to dry it.  Keep repeating this process until you've covered as much of your paper as you want to and of course repeat on some parts already done to get different amounts of colour.  

Leave the paper to dry while you do the same with a new piece of paper if ink remains or clean up before you do anything else or you'll find you get in a mess! 

Once your sheet is dry you can die cut whatever shapes you want.  I used the Stitched Star dies and as you can see they came out with a sort of denim look in various wash shades.  I also die cut some stars all from the same pack of dies using gold metallic specialty paper which I put double sided adhesive sheet on the back before die cutting.  You'll want to run these through your die cutting machine possibly a few times to be sure they are cut or add shims.  The adhesive sheets are great when you have narrow lines that you could get too much glue on with out them.  It makes for easy adhering.  

Enjoy your Sunday we are about to put up some lights and get the dec boxes out of the loft.  This is our last CCC for 2021.  We'll be back in the new year.  Be sure to visit the other lovely crafters in our club for more inspiration for your Christmas makes.  

Keep safe and keep stamping

Hugs Zoe x

Supplies Used

Stitched Star Dies

Stars Are Shining stamp set

now 50% off

Gold & Rose Gold Metallic Specialty Paper

Re inkers  - lots of colours

Fluid 100 watercolour paper