Mooch under the Christmas Tree

Hi everyone, on Sunday I had a fabulous day out in Ruthin, visiting the Lavinia shop for their Hallaganza Open Day. I had a wonderful time watching tutorials, chatting to the Design Team, the staff and other crafters, and browsing in the magical shop. I was so tired when I got home I didn’t even unpack my haul straight away, but yesterday I couldn’t wait to get started with my Christmas stamps from the new release!!  

However, instead of diving straight in with a card made totally with new stamps, I decided to pair the stunning new large Christmas tree with Mooch the cat so that I could join in this month’s Christmas Kickstart Challenge, which is in memory of Janis Woodbright. Janis hosted the annual Cat Lovers’ Blog Hop for a number of years but passed away in January, so her friends have got together to do a huge challenge in her honour. I was mostly away from crafting and blogging from 2013-2021 so I didn’t know Janis and have never taken part in her annual blog hop, however I was really impressed and touched by the efforts made by her crafty friends to put this challenge together to express their love and support, not to mention the incredible generosity of sponsors who worked with Janis in the past. 

Here’s my Christmas themed cat card.

I cut a piece of white stamping card 6 3/4” x 4 3/4” and stamped the gorgeous new Lavinia “Wild Pine” in Shady Lane and Pinecone Versafine Clair, then stamped Mooch the cat in Nocturne. I coloured the tree by painting in flicking motions with watered down Elements ink, then coloured the baubles and dots with Posca Sparkle pens. I stamped a mini star on top of the tree, first in gold ink but that gave a somewhat fuzzy impression, so I overstamped in Versafine Clair which gave the wholly unintended but pleasing impression of an aura around the star, and I also applied some colour with my orange sparkle pen.  I applied a light wash of Elements ink to ground the scene, then stamped the new Lavinia “Peace” sentiment in Warm Breeze, surrounded by Uniko wording in Nocturne. I finished off with a couple of 2nd generation snowflakes (1 was to hide a smudge … ssshhhh!!) and dots of glue pen covered in my new Starbrights holographic glitter, before matting onto pearlescent blue card stock and a 7” x 5” card blank.

Here is an angled picture to show (not very successfully!) the shimmer and sparkle.

Stamps: Lavinia Wild Pine, Mooch, North Star Mini, Snowflakes, Seasonal Words; Uniko Festive Sentiments;

Media: Versafine Clair (Shady Lane, Pinecone, Nocturne, Warm Breeze, Summertime); Lavinia Elements ink (Olive, Blue Atoll); Posca Sparkle Pens (Light Blue, Orange, Pink); Lavinia Starbrights Holographic Glitter.

Challenges I would like to enter:

ABC Christmas - V is for Vertical

CAS on Friday #269  - Animal

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #79 - Cat Lovers’ Christmas Challenge (Remembering Janis Woolbright)

Crafty Catz #656 - Anything Goes with option Any Four Legged Critter

Creative Moments #251 - It’s Alive! (3rd entry)

Daring Cardmakers - A Bit of Bling  (2nd entry)

Double Trouble #151 - Anything Goes

Lost Coast Portal to Creativity #176 - Cats

Simon Says (Wednesday) - Anything Goes (4th entry)

Use Your Stuff #496 - Anything Goes

Word Art Wednesday #619/620 - Anything Goes (4th entry)

That’s all from me for today, but I’ll be back soon with more Christmas makes with my new stash! Take care, and thanks for visiting.

Hugs,