O Christmas tree!!

Hi everyone,

I took my first ever delivery of Lavinia Christmas stamps last week - woo hoo !!, so now I’ve had my first opportunity to have a play. 

I bought a selection of stamps, a few new ink pads and some embossing glitter inspired by the Lavinia Tutorial - Winter Trees, so I made a couple of cards inspired by that but with a few tweaks ... and here they are.

For my first card I kept it fairly simple, creating hills, moon and sky with distress oxides and paper masks, then splattered with water and stamped my trees. I edged the card with first and second generation stamped  fir branches using midnight blue glitter and white heat embossing, very similar to in Tracey’s tutorial except that I used snowflake tinsel white embossing powder. Also I couldn’t resist doing a bit of second generation stamping with my new “Spirit of  Christmas” sentiment .. not sure whether I like that but I’m happy to go with it. I edged the moon and snowdrifts with my new Gelly roll stardust pen, then a simple card mounting and a stamped / heat embossed sentiment and I was done. 

Stamps: Lavinia “Small Fairy Fir Tree 2”, “Fern Branch” and “Spirit of Christmas”; sentiment - Pink Gem Designs;

Media: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Inks - Stormy Sky, Tumbled Glass, Barn Door; Versafine Clair - Twilight; WOW embossing glitter - Midnight Dream; Heat It Up embossing powder - Snowflake Tinsel; Sakura gelly roll pen - Stardust.

For my second card I proceeded along similar lines but used a different stamp for my focal tree, then masked off the trunk of the small fairy fir tree to create smaller trees in the foreground and background using 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation stamping to create some depth. I’m pleased with that element of versatility in the stamp. I also introduced my new teeny stars stamp in the sky, and this time I stamped and heat embossed my sentiment on separate card then mounted on foam tape. In case you’re wondering … yes that was to cover up a sentiment stamped directly onto the main panel where I tried a different colour embossing powder and didn’t like it!!

Stamps: Lavinia “Fir Tree 1”, “Small Fairy Fir Tree 2”, “Fern Branch” and “Stars 1 Mini”;  sentiment - Pink Gem Designs;

Media: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Inks - Stormy Sky, Tumbled Glass; Versafine Clair - Twilight; WOW embossing glitter - Midnight Dream; Heat It Up embossing powder - Snowflake Tinsel; Sakura Gelly roll pen - Stardust.

Challenges I would like to enter:

Classic Design Challenge (November) - Anything Goes (5th entry)

C.R.A.F.T. #617 - Christmas (2nd entry)

Crafty Calendar (November) - Anything Goes (3rd entry)

Do Al(l) Kreatives #59 - Embossing Plus Frosty Times

Dragonfly Dreams (November) - Christmas / Winter (2nd entry)

Krafty Chicks #585 - Christmas

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies #2146 - Anything Goes - HONORARY MENTION

Simon Says (Monday) - Trees - DESIGNER SPOTLIGHT

Stamping Sensations (November) - Christmas (2nd entry)

We Love Stamping (November) - Christmas (2nd entry)

That’s all for today, but I think there will be plenty more where these came from! With each new card I will be trying the odd new colour combo or technique, so watch out for some experiments which may or may not turn out well!

Take care, and thanks for visiting 

Hugs,