Santa in Spring

Well it feels slightly more springy today - definitely more sunshine around. The theme over at my old stamping ground 52 Christmas Card Throwdown is

 

 

 

 

So I thought I would give a wave to my friends there and make a Christmas card. I love this Tim Holtz vintage Santa. He looks shocked, like he may have just sat on a piece of holly! I have stamped him in Real Red and then clear embossed him. The tiny little 'Joyeux Noel' stamp is from Stampendous' Christmas Charms and the die frame is a Spellbinders one. I have also added some vellum snowflakes and white sequins. The paper is an old piece of SU dsp that has been stamped with spatters from Gorgeous Grunge and the baker's twine is Lawn Fawn. I hope you like him!

 

As well as 52CCT, I would like to enter my card in Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #377

 

Happy crafting! April x





Black Ice

 

 

Hello! My friend Tracey posted about the 'Black Ice' technique on Fb and I was desperate to have a go. I made these two cards last week and then saw that that Di's guest designer, Kathy at Pixie's Crafty Playground had used the same technique to make a fantastic motorbike card (there is also a link there to the tutorial I used). It is such a lot of fun! The only really important thing is to make sure your stamping is really dry with your heat gun (and walking away and leaving it if you possibly can!) I've always enjoyed techniques that involve swiping your inkpad around, so this technique reminds me very much of faux woodgrain techniques that involve the same thing. It's also nice to find a technique where I actually had all the stuff!

You can't really capture how 'foiley' these cards are in real life. I am sending them over to Di and Parsnip at Pixie's Snippets Playground where Di and I have been developing techniques whereby you reduce body weight by brushing yourself with very large paint brushes (I sense a video and book deal...!)

Happy crafting (and inkpad swiping!) April x