Sunset, nightfall, and Aura Borealis Holiday Cards

After I made the first one, I knew I was on to something. These were incredibly easy and fun to make.  You can adapt to stamps you have on hand. Also, no die cutting involved!

1. Cut up standard 8-1/2'' x 11'' white card stock into quarters. 
2. With a foam applicator, smooth and blend on 2 to 3 colors of pleasing-to-the-eye Distress Oxide inks. 
3. Lightly mist snowflake stamp with regular water. If you don't have a big one like this, use snowflakes from different sets to make a design. 
4. Stamp water dampened snowflake stamp onto inked panels. Hold there longer than you normally would. 
5. Let panel dry or heat dry. 
6. Stamp pine trees in Ranger Archival Black onto colored panel. Again, you don't have this big momma pine tree set, combine trees from other sets. You can even color in marker if not a solid design. I used a misti so I could stamp repeatedly for a deep, rich black. 
7. Stamp sentiment onto colored panel also in Ranger Archival Black ink. 
8. Dry all that black ink. 
9. Mount to card front. 

Tips: Clean snowflake stamp between applications as it will lift color. Plan a place for sentiment to go; you really cannot overlap with this technique. 

Color combos used:

• Wild Honey and Fired Brick
• Wilted Violet, Salty Ocean, and Seedless Preserves
• Worn Lipstick and Broken China

Supplies: 

CG685 Hand Drawn Snowflakes Bold Prints (link)

30-434 joyful wishes (link) 

CC101 Cover-a-Card Pine Trees (link)

Also used:

More Rubber Stamp assisted Watercolor

All stamps and papers by Penny Black. Pure Iris (40-332) and Heartfelt (30-286) stamps, Beau Jardin grey striped paper from a great value for your money paper pad. You get 48 sheets in this puppy. This is colored with Distress markers, even a little soot black, and then spritz 2x with water. Stamped on Ranger Distress watercolor paper. Held for a slow count of 5. Then a water brush drug around wherever the stamps grid/crosshatch design still showed.


On a whim, I re-spritzed the stamp with water without adding any more color and was able to get another softer stamp out of it. Multigenerational stamping certainly isn't new, but I was unsure that I had enough ink on the stamp to accomplish it. Totally recommend it.


This next set was with Pop Pop Poppy (40-330), Heartfelt (30-286), and Wall Paper Print background (40-134) stamps. It was my first card of the day- I used abandoned coral and picked raspberry as the Distress colors...way to much pink for me.  I should have gone with a tone-on-tone texture, like an embossing folder.

I am linking to Penny Black website for the stamps so you can see them- but I bought mine at my local scrapbook store, Photo Scraps.

Aww -- super cool. Penny Black kindly tweeted one of my cards!

Simple and oh-so-lovely! https://t.co/BombNPHNm9

— Penny Black (@pennyblackinc) May 24, 2015

Treat from My Favorite Things

Totally CASE'd (scrap lifted from Amy Rysavy

Some great sets have come out from My Favorite Things-- I'll never catch up but I did treat myself to some not-floral-and-posibly-gender-neutral sets. Stamps, dies, and even stencils.

First I went pretty clean and simple. Then I went messy splatter watercolor. Then bumped it up a notch by doing kind of a illusion die cut.

Even though you may see six colors on there, I only used four. Same four distress colors on both cards.

And in a little bit of extra fun, My Favorite Things graciously tweeted a compliment: 

@dedrawolff What a cool effect!
— My Favorite Things (@MFTStamps) April 12, 2015

Christmas/winter holiday card every day: day 25

Retired StampinUp Set, Sweet and Sassy Palm Trees, Art Impressions palm trees. Copic markers, Distress inks. 

I would definitely do it different next time. Should have stamped and masked. 

Christmas/winter holiday card every day: day 24

Art Impressions stamp, StampinUp sentiment, Distress ink, My Favorite Things sheet music background. Still in my blue/green phase I guess. 

Christmas/winter holiday card every day: day 23

Gelatos, Perfect Pearls, Sweet and Sassy Stamps, Impression Obsession, Distress inks as watercolors, My Favorite Things Background stamp, watering can ranger archival ink

Christmas/winter holiday card every day: day 10

Sentiment from Waltzingmouse. Pointsettia cut from velvet paper using Spellbinders die. Pearls from Stampin Up, colored with Copic markers. Paper from scrap stash- sorry I don't know manufacturer.


Supplies

Christmas/winter holiday card every day: day 9

Mittens cut from Bazzill paper and white pen accents on a Silhouette (digital file from Lettering Delights). Impression Obession background stamp & sentiment. Hero Art Soft Blossom ink.