Happy Christmas

What a great new launch from Bev at Bee Crafty on Hochanda last Monday. I hope you got to see her shows, however if you missed them they are still available on the Hochanda website via Catch Up. The snowflakes are really stunning, with such amazing detail and lets face it, you can never have too many snowflakes. They are wonderful for any winter cards whatever the occasion and make amazing backgrounds too.

For today's card I wanted to make a clean crisp card to show off the snowflakes and make them the focal point along with the sentiment. I started with the back, for this I used an embossing folder, I've used 'Snowflake Lattice' by Sue Wilson on crisp white card.

For the front I took the same cardstock and stamped the lovely 'Happy Christmas' sentiment using Cobalt Blue Archival. I wanted to use the small individual parts of the border from the set, so masked off with washi tape the unwanted parts before inking up with Blueprint Sketch to stamp them.

I backed the embossed card with Blue Centura Pearl card from Crafters Companion which I had gutted to use later.

I then used a die from 'Sue Wilson' to give a lovely background, this one is the Australian Background die. I used the blue card that I had gutted to go behind this and secured with Cosmic Shimmer Glue.

I used foam tape to secure the front to the embossed background. I then added a Navy satin bow to the corner before securing the whole piece to a white pearl base card.

Lastly just a little btit of exciting news, Leonie has a new One Day Special launch on Hochanda this Wednesday on Hochanda at 8pm. Thank you for joining me today, Hopefully you have enjoyed looking at the step by step I have shared and the finished card. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Take care and Happy Crafting.xx

Magical Christmas

Morning, The collection that Leonie launched on Hochanda has been a real joy and once again she has brought us something different. The gingerbread stamp is wonderful, I had great fun designing with the stamps. Today I have used the gingerbread men.

I took a piece of watercolour card and stamped the first Gingerbread man (left) and masked it off with Pebeo Drawing Gum. Next I stamped the Santa Hat and again asked off so I could position the second. After covering with Drawing Gum, I stamped the middle Gingerbread Man and masked off with gum.

I took one of Sue Wilson's pierced oval dies, placed over the design and drew around the edge in pencil. I wanted the gingerbread men to appear part on and part off of the design. I snipped away around their legs, anything that was outside the die and cut about 5 mm around the legs to allow me to position the die and cut.

I then took one of the strip stamps and sentiments from Leonie's last launch and positioned on my design

Taking one of Sue's larger pierced oval dies I cut one from watercolour card to be the background.

Before removing the Drawing Gum, I shaded around the design using Shaded Lilac, Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink. I stamped some of Leonie's snowflakes using the same inks and then removed the gum.I coloured the Gingerbread men with the Copper from the 'Evergreen' Set. Using very little colour and varying amounts of water to create different tones. I used the copper neat to colour the buttons and eyes. For the other areas, I used a selection of the colours across the collection.

For the back oval, I used Shaded Lilac and stamped snowflakes using Blueprint Sketch Distress Ink. I backed the whole design onto Blue Pearl card. Around the edge of the card I used Cosmic Shimmer glue and covered with Ice Diamond crystals to give an icy feel.

Thank you for joining me today. I do hope you have enjoyed the step by step I have shared with you and that you like the finished card. Please come by again. Take care and Happy Crafting.