Stampendous Snow Bears on Ice Circle card

Hi blogging friends 

Today I am sharing a Christmas card which I made for my dearest friend C who lives on the other side of Australia.  C is the kindest and most generous friend you could ever know - and has been an amazing support to our family since our loved one was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness in February 2012.  C is also a very talented cardmaker so I love our long chats on the phone about cardmaking.  Now that C has the card in her hot little hands, I can share it here:

The main image is by Stampendous - Snow Bears on Ice - which I have had forever and as far as I know, is retired - and was stamped using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink onto Ranger Distress watercolour cardstock and coloured with a variety of mediums:  Tombow pens, Ranger Distress Markers and Faber-Castell watercolour pencils.  I used a tiny round 5/0 paintbrush to dot white acrylic paint on the scarves.  I coloured around the image with blue chalk.

I went over the red hats using a Wink of Stella red glitter pen and added Stampin' Up Dazzling Details glitter glue underneath the skates.  I also added Cotton White Fun Flock mixed with Crystalina glitter to the cuff and pom-pom on the hat using Tombow Mono Aqua glue.  

Here is a close-up:

It is a bit hard to see the sparkle as the weather was very dreary on the day I took the photo.  An hour later, the card was in the post so I didn't have much choice!
 
The snowflakes are by My Favorite Things from their Snowflakes Trio die set.  I glued down just the centres and bent the snowflake arms (is that what they are called??) up a little to give them some dimension against the white cardstock, then added red rhinestones to the centres.

The sentiment is from Elzybells (who are no longer in business) and I added a green rhinestone to each end. 

The white cardstock base was originally a square pre-folded card and was diecut using a Lifestyle Nesting Circle die but I moved the die up a little so that I still had a small fold at the top.  I dry-embossed the circle cardstock base using my Big Shot and Cart-Us Snowflakes embossing folder, then all I had to do was layer the main image panel on.  All the circle/scalloped circle diecuts are from the Lifestyle Nesting Circle/Scalloped Circles sets.  I really love these sets because you get oodles of dies in them - from tiny circles to really large circles that are big enough to make a circle card:  great value in my opinion.  

I really should make more circle cards - they are a fun change from the regular square or rectangular cards.

Lastly, I used my Bow Easy to tie a double-bow out of my Doodlebug twine and glued it on using Glossy Accents.  I put some weight on it whilst it dried to hold it firmly.  As always, I added Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.

Challenges:

I am popping my card into the following Challenge - 

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - December - Anything Goes

This will be my last post before Christmas.  I have one more Christmas card to share but as that person won't be opening it until Christmas Day, I can't share yet - plus they read my blog so sharing it beforehand would spoil the surprise. 

Merry Christmas and a happy 2015 to you all - and thanks so much for your support, comments and emails throughout this year.

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Stampendous Snow Bears on Ice D144 wood-mount (retired), sentiment from Elzybells Mini Messages 20-054 clear set (retired)

Ink:  Ranger Archival Jet Black

Dies:  Lifestyle Nesting Circles and Nesting Scalloped Circles, My Favorite Things Die-namics Snowflakes Trio

Accessories:  Big Shot, Tombow pens, Ranger Distress Markers, Faber-Castell watercolour pencils, #2 and 5/0 round paintbrush, Stampin' Up Dazzling Details glitter glue, Wink of Stella red glitter pen, JoSonja white acrylic paint, Stampendous Cotton White Fun flock mixed with fine Crystalina glitter, Tombow Mono Aqua and Mono Multi glue, Kaisercraft blue chalk, Bow Easy, Fray Stop, Doodlebug Ladybug twine, green and red rhinestones from stash, Ranger Distress watercolour cardstock, other cardstock - white, green, red