Christmas Possibilities!

Hello fellow stampers! I have been working on samples for my Christmas cards, putting bits and pieces together to try and finally find an arrangement I like for my holiday cards.

This one takes awhile to make, so if I don't hurry along and decide soon, I won't get any cards done at all. I stamped the image of the Jolly Snowman from Stampabilities on kraft card stock with StazOn black ink. I am using watercolor pencils to color the image, so I didn't want the outline ink to bleed. I used the new Inktense colored pencils from Derwent, and they are a watercolor like pencil, but has very intense colored pigment.  You can see how intense the color is on kraft stock, so you can imagine how bold it is on white stock.  You can color the image with the pencils directly, and then use a brush with water applied over it to blend the colors together. Or, you can use a water brush (paintbrush that holds water in it) to just drag over the point of the pencil to pick up color, and then paint directly on the paper.  It doesn't take a lot of water to blend out the colors of these Inktense pencils, so you can use them on any type of papers, watercolor to cardstock. It says they can even be used on canvas and fabric!  I haven't tried it on those surfaces yet.

After coloring the image, I matted it on polka dot printed paper, and wrapped some Peppermint colored twine around and knotted it. Then I mounted it on the gray snowflake paper, and then the kraft colored card base.  The sentiment and peppermint twine are from Lawn Fawn, the sentiment from the Bows & Holly set. For the final step, I inked around the entire card with navy blue chalk ink to distress it a bit.

Well, off to try my hand at a few more designs. Stick around and see what I come up with, I will share them as I go.  Have a wonderful day, and Happy Holidays!