Hey friends! It's that time of the month again, where a bunch of my crafty friends and I dig around in our stashes to find and use some of those supplies we have been "squirreling away" for a rainy day. You should have arrived here from Val's Instagram. Well, today may or may not be a rainy day, but I'm still here to share what I made for our theme this month:
This card was a fun one for me to make. My first step was to ink blend the Strathmore Bristol smooth 6x6 panel with Chipped Sapphire and Wilted Violet Oxide inks. After I dried it with my heat tool, I used my never-before-opened Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi embossing paste with the Echo Park Jingle Bell Snowflakes stencil. I quickly removed the stencil and placed it and my palette knife in some warm soapy water. Then I sprinkled Distress Rock Candy glitter onto the paste. I left the panel to dry while I worked on die cutting the pieces for this adorable gnome that comes from the Gina K/Thermoweb Gnome for the Holidays kit. If you haven't seen this sold-out kit, it comes with a die set to make gnomes and trees, a 6x8 stamp set, a detail stencil, and Fancy Foils in Glimmering Gold and Sparkling Silver. I truly wanted the kit mostly for the gorgeous foils, but I can definitely see me making more cards with cute gnomes!
Anyway, I cut the pieces I wanted all from 110lb. white Recollections cardstock. I colored the hat and body pieces using the same Oxide inks, and used my alcohol markers to color the nose, beard, and shoes. I did use the coordinating stencil to apply Star Dust Stickles to the hat, and to the ball at the end of the hat. When my panel was dry, I cut it down using the largest die from the Spellbinders Card Creator Set B. I also cut a matting layer from navy cardstock using the largest die from the A set. I assembled my gnome and decided that he looked best in the lower left corner of the card. My lovely Squirrel Sister Karen (misplaced mojo) suggested that I add the vellum snowflake behind him, and I'm glad she did! I love the added layer of texture, and that it doesn't really cover up too much of the background. For the sentiment, I used Sizzix/Tim Holtz Christmas Sentiments 1 for the die cut "Merry," which I cut from the same white cardstock 3 times. The top layer was softly ink blended with Wilted Violet Oxide ink from the bottom up to create an ombre look. Which I happened to like the look of much better before I continued on by adding Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents to it. I think those 2 products washed out the ink. Oh well, it's done now! Here's a couple different pics:
