Hi, friends! It's Walter Zemrock on the blog with you today sharing my first post as a member of the Topflight Stamps team. I'm truly excited to be joining this team of amazing creators and look forward to opportunity to share designs with you. This week's theme is Christmas, and I couldn't be happier about that! It's a time of the year filled with so much magic and wonder . . . and I enjoy trying to capture that in my designs.
Today's card was created with products from Lavinia Stamps: Christmas Night - Santa's Sleigh, Snowy Fir Tree - Small, Forrest Scene, Annie & Edward Set, and Christmas Greetings. In addition, I also used several Versafine Clair Ink pads (Nocturne, Blue Belle, Fallen Leaves, Green Oasis), Hunkydory Gold & Silver Diamond Sparkles Precious Pearls, as well as several items from my stash: watercolor paper panel, white pigment ink, ink pouncer applicator, white acrylic marker, and gel pens.
I began by applying the Blue Belle ink to the watercolor panel using a baby wipe. Watercolor paper is a great background for this card for two reasons: 1). it won't pill as you pounce and swipe the baby wipe across it, and 2). it has texture that works great when creating a snowy scene. I simply smoosh my ink pad onto my glass crafting surface, swipe the ink with the baby wipe, and add it to the paper by pouncing and swiping it around. I then follow up by using my blue ink blending brush to swipe back and forth to blend it all a bit. Note that you're not looking for a completely unified ink blended background and variations are okay.
I then used my ink pouncing brush and white pigment ink to gently soften the color by randomly pouncing all over the panel. This softens the blue color and fills in variations to create a snowy night sky. I followed that up my adding white splatter to the card panel to create the falling snow.
I was then able to determine the placement of images in my scene and stamp them. Note that I achieved the darker green shade for the fir trees by stamping them first with Fallen Leaves and then stamping them with Green Oasis on top of it.
Once the stamping was done, I was able to add details. I used a white gel pen to add snow onto tree branches, yellow and orange glitter gel pens to add a light effect around the lantern and candle, and a white acrylic marker to add some heavier snow impressions and snowy ground for Annie & Edward to stand on.
I just love Annie & Edward! They add such a sense of wonder to the scene by standing there with their lights, looking up at Santa, and watching as he flies above them. All I can think of is BELIEVE as I look at this card!
I hope that you enjoyed learning more about my design and process. I look forward to sharing another post with you next Monday. Until then . . . be well!
Topflight Stamps Supplied Used:
Lavinia Christmas Night - Santa's Sleigh
Lavinia - Annie & Edward Set
