Surf's Up for Christmas!

Oh, how good it is to have time to play with my stamp sets! I love having them but it really is a waste of money if they just sit on the shelf - even if they do look pretty.

Last night I had a night to myself so I played with one of the new Christmas sets in the Spring 09 Mini Catalogue - Season's Surfin'. I just had to buy this set - I love the images - they are perfect for watercolouring. The first card is very non-traditional Christmas colours - Real Red and Brilliant Blue. I didn't set out to use these colours, they just came out of my watercolouring. I stamped the image on watercolour paper using Black Staz-On ink. I coloured the images using an Aquapainter and Watercolour Wonder crayons. The line of gold brads along the bottom was inspired by the yellow Christmas lights around the jet-ski.

This palm tree Christmas tree is just so cute! I coloured it very simply with Gorgeous Green leaves and Close to Cocoa trunk (Aquapainter and Watercolour Wonder crayons as above). I decided this one should be more traditional colours so the base is Gorgeous Green and the images are mounted on Real Red. I just had to put the greeting on an angle - it didn't look right straight!


I hope that this inspires you to get a start on your Christmas cards too. It is never too early, you know.

PS Sorry about the fuzzy photos - I couldn't get them any clearer than this.

Technique Class

I ran a techniques' class last Sunday afternoon. We made the following cards:

This one was requested by one of attendees. She wanted to learn how to fold the Origami Shirt. This is a great male card - whether for a birthday as I have made it or for Father's Day. I took the colour scheme from the DSP (Washington pack) - Bashful Blue, So Saffron and Pumpkin Pie - but I substituted Riding Hood Red for Real Red as I love using the In Colours.

This one uses the Sense of Time stamp set from our Spring Mini Catalogue. I love this set as it really works well for male cards (do you see a theme developing here?). We used the Cracked Glass technique on the clock face to give it a fabulous aged look. Again, the colours came from the DSP (Parisian Breeze Specialty) - Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze and Kraft. We stamped the clock face on Confetti Cream to accentuate the aged look and I aged it further by sponging Chocolate Chip ink over the Cracked Glass face.

Our bonus card got us started on making Christmas Cards. It is a tri-fold card with a difference. You can get the instructions here. I just love making these cards - they are so much easier than they look. I have kept this one simple using just 2 colours - Riding Hood Red for the card base and the same DSP paired with Kiwi Kiss for the tree image (which is embossed in gold). I have the cardstock cut for a few more of these all ready to go so I think that is what I'll do tomorrow night (I was going to do it tonight but Blogger has been very slow to load my photos).