Rudolph Days - October Guest Designer

Hi everyone, it’s the 25th of the month again which means it’s time for a new Rudolph Days Challenge - a monthly week long challenge where Anything Christmas Goes to encourage us to get ahead with our Christmas makes. 

I’m thrilled to be a guest designer this month, and it gave me opportunity to play with some more of my new goodies from the Port Sunlight craft fair.

Here’s my card for the challenge.

One of the stalls I visited at Port Sunlight was Card-io, where I was transfixed by the sample Christmas cards with multi coloured Aurora skies, and I watched a really great demo. Despite already having plenty of coloured inks I was tempted to buy some teeny cube Versacolor ink pads so I could try to replicate a similar effect using a couple of my new Inkylicious and Card-io stamps and stencils along with a few existing stamps.

I cut a 6” square of white stamping card and placed my stencil for positioning, then stamped the focal log cabin in the centre and extended the scene on one side with a Card-io small tree. I masked the cabin and the bottom half of the bauble, then created the sky by blending Versacolor inks with a dry wipe - a new technique for me! I also blended a little round the bottom edges of the stencil to define the bauble shape, blended silver ink through the top of the stencil for the hanger, then outlined the bauble first with a fine white Posca then with a sparkly Stardust pen. I have to confess this stencil is a bit big - I thought it would fit a standard 6” square card but it’s actually a tight fit, so I ended up making a 7” card.

 I blended a couple of inky snowdrifts then coloured the cabin roof, fence and trees with white Posca pen. I added a couple of teeny stamped deer to the scene, then framed it with multiple 1st/2nd generation stamping of a gorgeous new branch stamp I acquired called ‘Cherry Blossom’, and a few 2nd generation snowflakes. I added some shadow to the bauble with Memento ink, stamped the sentiment and matted onto a blue border and card blank before finally adding a liberal helping of Stickles for sparkle!

Stamps: Inkylicious Winter Cabin (medium), Stag/Deer set 1; Card-io Oriental Blossom, Pine Forest; Visible Image Let It Snow; Uniko Christmas Wishes;

Media:  Versafine Clair (Morning Mist, Arctic, Blue Belle); Versacolor (Atlantic, Peony, Canary, Green Tea); Memento (Paris Dusk); Brilliance ink (Platinum planet); Sakura Stardust pen (clear); Posca pen (white); Stickles (Stardust);

Tools: Card-io stencil - Vintage Bauble.

Challenges I would like to enter:

12 Months of Christmas #127 - Anything Goes Christmas with option Snowfall (4th entry)

Christmas Kickstart #103 - Snow Alert! (3rd entry)

Crazy Is Our Fame, Stencils are our Game (October) - Use a Stencil (2nd entry)

FarmQuest Country Christmas #25 - Anything Country Christmas Goes (3rd entry)

FarmQuest General Store #33 - Anything Farm and/or Country Goes (3rd entry)

The Holly and Ivy #194 - Anything Christmas Goes (3rd entry)

Jingle Belles - Dashing Through the Snow

NBUS #79 - Use Your Never-Before-Used Schtuff

(The bauble stencil, all stamps used inside the bauble, trailing branches, and ink pads used to colour the sky)

Sparkles Christmas #177 - Non-traditional Christmas Colours (3rd entry)

Word Art Wednesday #722723 - Anything Goes (2nd entry)

Please do pop over to the main challenge blog for more inspiration and to link up your entries.

I’d like to thank Helen for asking me to be a guest designer this month. 

Take care and thanks for visiting - and Happy Rudolph Day!

Hugs,