Sledging through the snow

Hello, crafting friends!

Despite all the sunshine and spring flowers around here, I've imagined a snowy scene today!

This pair of cuties from Avery Elle's Polar Playtime are certainly enjoying the sub zero temperatures as they zoom down that icy slope on their dangerous-looking sledge! I coloured them with alcohol markers and cut the image out.

The background I made for them started with a watercolour sky. Once that had dried, I masked off the foreground and stencilled in some pine trees, using green ink and a stencil made with a tree from Tim Holtz Woodlands die set. I used opaque white acrylic paint and a paint brush to add a snowy slope and some falling snow. The card was finished with a die cut sentiment that I found at Hobbycraft.

CHALLENGES

The Kickstart Christmas challenge has a Sleigh Me theme so I shall link this card up there; I'm also joining in with 52 Christmas Card Throwdown where they want us to use Stamping on our cards; I'm also linking up with Rudolph Day at Scrappymo's where we make a festive card on the 25th of each month.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

As I was walking with Eva through the fields at the back of our house yesterday, I was reminded of snowy days. There's a small but quite steep slope that leads down into a lower field and I saw some small children rolling down it, squealing with laughter. When it snows, lots of little children go sledding there. Teenagers go to a different place that they call Death Hill. As far as I know, no-one has met their death there but I suppose there wouldn't be quite the same appeal for the teens if it was called 'Gentle Incline' or 'Totally Safe, Risk-Assessed Slope'!

Sending hugs,

Walking in a Woodlands Wonderland

Hello, crafting friends!

With all this ice and snow around it seemed a good idea to make a Christmas card! Any Christmas cards made now mean less rushing about at the end of the year and that makes sense to me :)

To start, I tipped the contents of my snippets box out onto the table and picked out some items I'd made for other projects but not used - a deer (from Stampin' Up's retired Winter Post) that was stamped and fussy cut; the number 25 (from Stampin' Up's retired 25 Days) that was in a star shape but I cut it out with a circle punch; a couple of tiny snippets of designer paper; and some die cut snowflakes (which I later put back as I decided to stamp my flakes instead.

Before arranging my elements on the card, I stencilled in a background. I held a homemade rectangle stencil off centre and sponged in sky/snow with Tumbled Glass distress ink. Over that, I held a stencil made with the Tim Holtz Woodlands die set and inked in some fir trees.

Then I was able to build up a collage with the snippets of paper (one of which I scalloped for a bit of interest), the deer and the 25. Finally he sentiment and the snowflakes (both from Funky Fossil's Christmas Characters) were stamped and I added tiny details to the snowflakes and deer with a Posca white paint pen.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

So lovely to be show-cased at The Snippets Playground with this card :) It also won a Cut Above at The Paper Players.

CHALLENGES

The starting point for this card was Joanne's exciting sketch at The Paper Players so I'm linking up there; I'm also joining in with the Stamplorations Stencil Challenge where Anything Goes using stencils; Such a Deer is the theme at the Christmas Kickstart challenge and of course it's time for the Rudolph Day Challenge too (where anything |Christmas goes from the 25th to the end of the month) so I'll link up there too.  And last but not least, I shall trot over to The Snippets Playground with my snippety make, if my deer doesn't mind giving me a lift!

AND IN OTHER NEWS

It's been lovely having the snow for Eva to play in and the day of intense blue sky and sunshine really gave my mood a boost too . But snow turns to ice which isn't what you need when recovering from a hamstring injury, especially not when in charge of large excited dogs!! The thaw has set in now - it's drizzling as I type -  and it'll all be gone by tomorrow leaving... oh heck, more mud :/

Sending hugs,