Blended Summer Tree Christmas Card

 

So I decided to make another blended tree christmas card to go with my engineering tree christmas card. This time I wanted to use little stamp images that matched a summer theme. The reason being that I live in New Zealand and we have christmas in summer. To add motivation to the cause I decided to also try and complete the card fast enough so I could enter this month's CAS christmas card challenge, a link to which you can find below...

https://caschristmascardchallenge.blogspot.com/2020/11/cas-christmas-november-2020-challenge.html

To make sure I tied into this month's challenge, I went with a blue blended/ombre background for the tree. Unfortunately, I did make a mistake with my stamping so to cover it up I added another piece of card on top of the original card front. It only adds one layer so hopefully still within rules of the challenge to have minimal layers; anyway, happy to have another card finished and sharing this design.

If you want to see a video on how I make these kinds of cards click the link below for the video below:

https://youtu.be/Sjdd-1c5JW4

 

Just like my previous blended engineering tree christmas card, I used a triangle cut out to mask around which makes the 'tree' shape on the card front. My card front is an A6 notecard and I tape it down to my stamping platform.

I use Altenew crisp dye inks in, sea glass, ocean waves and dusk to blend a blue ombre background within the triangle tree using my blending brushes.

Blue ombre blended background

I then gather all my summer themed stamp sets and select the small image stamps and arrange as many as I can fit onto/within the masked triangle. After this I close the door on my stamping platform to grab the stamps.

Arranging all the little summer themed stamps inside triangle tree

I used gina k designs amalgam ink in jet black to ink and stamp the images onto the card front. I ink and stamp a couple of times to make sure I get a good stamped images.

Then I clean my stamps using a baby wipe. I take the small heart stamp and using an acrylic block along with the same black ink as before, I ink and stamp the small image multiple times in various orientations to fill in the gaps in the triangle tree.

Stamped images

Using an acrylic block I once again inked and stamped  a 'merry christmas' sentiment stamp  below the triangle tree image to portray a stump of the tree.

Unfortunately, I didn't stamp it very well and it looked horrible. So, to cover it up I took another piece of A6 sized cardstock, cut out the triangle and overlaid it on top of the card front hide the poor stamping.

I then stamped the 'merry christmas' sentiment stamp using StazOn saddle brown ink onto this piece of cardstock using my stamping platform. I also, grabbed a black sharpie marker and colored in the inner edge of the triangle frame to give it a bit of definition.

 

Frame overlay with stamped sentiment and colored frame

Next step was I used double-sided tape to adhere this new frame to the card front, making sure to frame lined up with the triangle tree shape. Then trimmed off any excess.

As usual, I then adhere the card front to a card base this time a silver card base.

Frustratingly, I realised using a sharpie to color the edge of the frame was not a good idea because the ink bled and made the framing look untidy. To fix this I grabbed a black gel pen and a ruler and drew  black lines along the edge of the frame over the top of the bleeding ink. 

Unfortunately, I already sent the card by the time I got around to typing up posting this blog post so I don't have a photo of the final 'tidied up' card, just a photo of before I fixed it but after the card front was adhered to the card base.

Finished card (before I fixed the bleeding ink)

I enjoyed making this card and I like the final design better than the previous versions. I also like that I can change the theme of the little stamps I use to fill the tree triangle to suit a certain genre or interests of the person I intend to send it to.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you found something useful or interesting.

Happy crafting!

Mel Crafting

 

Christmas Card - Warm Christmas Wishes

Warm Summer Wishes Christmas Card

Living in the southern hemisphere means a warm summer's day on Christmas. When I came across Simon Says Stamp's Warm Christmas Wishes for sale 2nd hand on Trademe, I had to get it and make some summery Christmas cards. Combined with a couple of other summer themed stamp sets, this will be the first of many Christmas cards I make with a summer flair to them.

(I will link to a YouTube process video for this card here in the near future, I'm just having a few teething issues with editing the footage but I'll get there and put it up as soon as it's ready!)

I wanted to use the large landscape image from Simon Says Stamp's Surf's Up stamp set so I decided to make a square card and cut out a piece of 300 GSM white cardstock 15cm x 15cm. A few friends have been asking how I store my stamp (and die) sets so I'll post another blog post in the near future on how I do that using black envelopes as you can see in the following photos.

Simon Says Stamp - Surf's Up Stamp Set

Simon Says Stamp - Warm Christmas Wishes Stamp Set

Simon Say Stamp - Warm Christmas Wishes - Coordinating Die Set

I stamped that large circular landscape image onto my square card using clear embossing ink and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. I also stamped the image onto plain white scrap paper using black ink and fussy cut it out - this will be used as a mask as when I use my daubers to ink blend the background.

Using Altenew mini ink pads and sponge daubers, I carefully masked the landscape image and ink blended an ocean scene with an island in the middle using the following colours: Caramel Toffee, , Desert Night, Dusk, Ocean Waves and Sea Glass.

Altenew Inks and Sponge Daubers Used of Ink Blended Background

Onto white 300 GSM cardstock  I stamped many of the smaller images from both Surf's up and Warm summer wishes' stamp sets using Gina K jet black amalgam ink. As I intended to color them using alcohol markers.

Using Touchfive alcohol markers I colored the images then either fussy cut around them or they were die cut using a coordinating die if the image was from the Warm Summer Wishes stamp set.

Warm Christmas Wishes & Surf's Up Images - Stamped and Colored

Next I arranged the images onto the card front to see where it would be best to place a sentiment. I decided to use the 'Warm Christmas Wishes' sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp's Warm Christmas Wishes Stamp Set. Once I was happy with the arrangement, I stuck the images down into place using double sided tape and stamped the sentiment using clear smbossing ink onto black card stock. I then heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder, cut the card into a banner and stuck it to the card using double-sided tape.

I cut down the card front a little and mounted it to a 15.5cm x 16.5cm black card base. This is the first square card I've made so it a bit of an odd sized card, which is why I also had to make an envelope that is 16.5cm x 16.5cm. I used some scrapbooking paper with silver/black baubles to make a christmas themed envelope for this card.

Warm Christmas Wishes Christmas Card with Silver Baubles Envelope

All done!

Happy crafting!

Mel Crafting.