Lawn Fawn Winter Penguin Christmas card

Hi blogging friends

I am finally getting back into the groove of making cards on a regular basis.  Funny how when you have hardly made any cards for a while, it seems difficult to get everything flowing again.  I haven't coloured anything much for ages and it was almost like I had forgotten how:  I felt so rusty!  But with Christmas fast-approaching, I need to get my skates on as I haven't made very many Christmas cards this year - and today I am sharing a card using a super-cute little penguin from Lawn Fawn which is my entry for the following challenges:

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Anything Goes
Christmas Stampin' All Year Long - Challenge 36 - Anything Goes

I dry-embossed a piece of Ranger Distress watercolour cardstock using my Big Shot and Ultimate Crafts Snowflake Frame embossing folder (which was a recent purchase at a Craft Show in October and is a 2014 release).  I really love how this folder has a blank section in the middle for your image.  

To do the background, I drew a wavy line with my pencil as a guide for where I wanted my skyline then used an old paintbrush to drop in dots of Masking Fluid where I wanted the snow to be.  Once this was dry, I wet the cardstock with clear water using a flat paintbrush and dropped in some watered-down Winsor and Newton watercolour paints in blues, purple and a little bit of grey and just let them mingle together.  I left it to dry and then used my finger to rub off the Masking Fluid which left white dots for snow.  I also painted the area to the left of the penguin with watered-down Ultramarine watercolour paint.  The sky looks quite a bit paler in the photo than in real life and you can see the detail a bit better in the close-up photo a bit further down.

I was a bit clumsy when I painted the sky and some colour leaked into the dry-embossed frame (next time I will mask off that section!) and it didn't look very good so I tried to sponge the colour out but just made it worse!  I was getting very cheesed off and almost tossed the jolly thing out - but then came up with the idea of adding a diecut frame over the embossed frame to hide the mess and was lucky to find one that was almost the right size and figured it was near-enough so ran with it.  I glued it on using Tombow Mono Multi glue.  Phew!  And you know, I actually preferred having a frame over the centre compared to no frame.

I stamped the penguin onto Distress watercolour cardstock using Ranger Jet Black archival ink and coloured him with Festive Berries and Peacock Feathers Distress Markers and Black Soot Distress ink.  I added some white dots on the scarf using a white gel pen then diecut the penguin using the matching Lawn Fawn die.

The sentiment is also from the Winter Penguin stamp set and was stamped with RangerJet Black ink and Ancient Page Cardinal dye ink.

I drew in the black skating line using a Zig black pen then glued on the 3 x pale teal snowflakes around the image.  The snowflakes are the leftover punchies from using a Martha Stewart Snow Flurry edge punch:  I love these punchies because the snowflakes are so tiny and perfect for adding as little embellishments.  I added silver rhinestones to the centres.

Here is a close-up of the main panel:

The white snowflakes are by My Favorite Things - and I used the smallest and 2nd smallest dies.  I popped them up on dimensionals and added red rhinestones.

I layered the main panel onto red cardstock and trimmed the edges to 1/16" using my Perfect Layers Tools.

Lastly, I used a Clear Wink of Stella glitter pen to add some sparkle to the scarf, skates and the pale teal snowflakes and some Glossy Accents to the penguin's beak.

Before I go, I forgot to share on my last post the Halloween card that my daughter gave me:

Pretty cool, don't you think?! 

And just a snippet of happy news:  my Halloween card (see THIS blogpost) was picked as one of the favourites for the week on Splitcoaststampers - yay me!  And my card was also showcased as one of the top 4 picks over at Diecutting Divas (you can see the details HERE - just scroll down till you see my card!)  Oh my gosh, I can hardly believe it!!

Thanks for visiting my blog today. 

Jocelyn 


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Lawn Fawn Winter Penguin set

Ink:  Ranger Jet Black Archival, Ancient Page Cardinal dye, Black Soot Distress Ink

Dies:  Lawn Fawn Winter Penguin, My Favorite Things Die-namics Snowflakes Trio, Lifestyle Nesting Card Templates (rectangles)

Accessories:  Big Shot, Ultimate Crafts Snowflake Frame embossing folder (from 2014 Feliz Navidad Collection), Perfect Layers Tools, dimensionals, Tombow Mono Multi glue, doublesided tape, Distress Markers - Peacock Feathers and Festive Berries, white gel pen, Zig black .03 pen, Winsor and Newton watercolour paints, 1/2" flat paintbrush, #2 round paintbrush, old round paintbrush, Masking Fluid, Papermania silver rhinestones PMA351103, Kaisercraft SB711 red rhinestones, Wink of Stella clear glitter pen, Glossy Accents, cardstock - red, pale teal, Ranger Distress watercolour

Punches:  Martha Stewart Snow Flurry edge