Christmas or not? In The Pines watercolour card

If you’re like me, you'll still be making Christmas cards like an elf on strong coffee, so this post is for you as it features a fun Christmas card idea.

But if you're one of The Other People, who has not only made their Christmas cards but – worse! – maybe even written or POSTED them, then this blog post is also for you as it shows you a fun tree-themed card idea using one of my favourite stamp sets, In The Pines. 

 

 

This is the first in a very short series of blog posts on the theme of “Christmas or not’... showing cards designs which can be used for a variety of occasions.

This beautiful card idea came from Julie Kettlewell of the Paper Haven, who told me that she got the idea from Artisan Design Team member Nina.

I loved it and sat down to make it immediately. You know how I love a messy watercolour technique. And trees. Put them together and we have a project which is so far up my street that you can see my front door.

It’s simply a case of stamping onto wet paper, in this case Shimmery White. This gives you a lovely washy look to the images, and you can then spread the ink around a little more using a paintbrush or water painter.  

 

Watch Nina's video here

When it’s dry, you can splash it with Whisper White Craft ink but be careful! I ended up with a Jackson Pollock-esque streaks on my project and lovely little snowflake dots all over everything else... the table, my phone, my clothes and my hands. 

In Nina’s video, she squeezes ink onto a clear block to use it for splashing. I prefer to use an old embellishment container so you can put the lid on and use any leftover ink again and again.

 

 

For the Christmas version, I added a tiny star to the top of the tree from the All The Trimmings Embellishments pack. Leaving this off keeps the card neutral, so you can use it for pretty much any other occasion. I’ve stamped “thank you” from Beautiful Autumn, because that’s the type of card I needed.

 

But it would also make a great masculine birthday card for a man who loves the outdoors. Or you could send it to me because I love trees, as may have already mentioned.

 

Both are finished off with some gorgeous Linen Thread, which never goes out of style. I hope this never retires as I use it all the time!

Now a warning: don’t delay!

In The Pines and Beautiful Autumn are both retiring soon so if you want to get either of them, please don’t delay. Shop the retiring list tomorrow (Tues 8th) as some items will be reduced (In The Pines is full price but Beautiful Autumn will be reduced, in the UK at least) and there are some mega bargains to be had. All products will only be available while supplies last and shipping may take longer due to Covid and Christmas, so I strongly urge you to do your shopping tomorrow to avoid disappointment.

If you're in the UK, please shop online using the December host code SX4NGWRH (unless you're spending over £150!). And as a thank you for using the code, I will send you a handmade card and a thank you gift.

 

Starburst Christmas card with Pine Woods Dies

Crafty Friday finally happened! We had to postpone for a week because some of the kits took SO LONG to arrive. In fact we gave up on one of them and my husband drove another one over to the lady's house; inevitably, the first kit arrived in the post the next day! It had taken nine days to arrive.

I’ll only show you one of the cards we made here as the other one was a direct copy of this. 

Yes, we were sponging again and I thought it was a good opportunity to have a go at the Starburst technique. We all began by making our templates. I always take a pretty rough and ready approach to crafting, winging it as I go. One lady, however, measured all her angles using a protractor! It was to be expected, I suppose, as she is a retired maths teacher.

These are the three stages of template making. Others have suggested making these out of window sheets or other acetate but I’m not convinced; I think that would allow ink to pool and make it more likely to smudge and blob.

We sponged on to the Pretty Peacock cardstock in whatever colour ink we had to hand. I had Pretty Peacock, of course (to me, ink pads are like Pokemon; gotta catch ’em all!)  but others achieved good results with Just Jade and the now retired Island Indigo. I really like this colour combination; Pretty Peacock, Just Jade and just a splash of red. 

 

The greeting panel is from the same die set as the sprigs of evergreen; the Beautiful Boughs dies, which was released last year but never goes out of style. 

I ran out of the red ribbon from the All The Trimmings Ribbon Combo Pack which I’d used for the samples as I’d had to donate my prepared kit due to the postal issues. Therefore, during the actual session, I used this gorgeous Just Jade gingham from the Flowers For Every Season Ribbon Combo Pack instead.

These Pine Woods Dies are one of my favourite products ever. Both of these trees have open foliage which pops out but, as you can see, the back one, in Mint Macaron, has retained these pieces. That’s because I was lazy and didn’t clean out the die. But you know what? I like the effect!

 

To get the greeting, from In The Pines, onto two separate lines, you have severa; options. The stamp set is photopolymer, so cutting it up is really easy. But that felt a bit drastic for one card. Another option is to mask each section off using tape or a sticky note, but that is fraught with danger. Instead, I inked and stamped each word separately using a Stampin’ Write Marker, cleaning the stamp very thoroughly in between. 

 

If you’d like to order anything you see here, please visit my store and, if shopping in November 2020, please use the host code RMK743TS. The host code allows me to earn Stampin’ Rewards which I use to order thank you gifts for my online customers.

More In The Pines inspiration

As you may have gathered if you're a frequent visitor to All Things Stampy, I’m a BIG fan of trees. So the forest-inspired imagery of the In the Pines Bundle made it an absolute must for me.

As I showed on Monday, this set isn’t just for Christmas. It’s perfect for masculine cards, sympathy cards, birthday cards, congratulations cards, ‘just because’ cards and yes, Christmas too.

Take a look at these fabulous samples create by Stampin’ Up!®'s own artists and see if you’re inspired to head into the pines. 

 

 

 

For the ‘fabulous’ card at the top left, the background colours are created with sponge daubers. The images are stamped and then cut out with the ‘snowy hill’ dies from the bundle.

 

To create the starry/snowy sky on the ‘Life is better with you’ card, use a paintbrush or water painter to dilute Whisper White craft ink and spatter over the base. I love this technique! 

For the ‘Season’s greetings’ card, there are some serious techniques going on. The trees are stamped with the solid tree stamp and cut with the open die. Then the outline tree is stamped and embossed with white, watercoloured with Mint Macaron and cut out with the detail peek-through tree die. Clear embossing powder is used over the white craft “snow” in the background so it does not smudge.

 

Want to make these two fun projects? Please click here to see and download a free tutorial over on my website. I have converted it to A4 measurements. 

 

In the Pines stamped onto DSP

In The Pines is not just for Christmas! I used it recently to make a batch of cards for a variety of occasions.

The small cards are to thank customers who ordered from me at a party I held for a long-time customer, Mandy. Mandy has stuck with me for many years, for which I’m truly grateful. 

So how did I make them? The small cards are simply a standard card base cut in half. I stamped them using the Stamparatus for speed and accuracy, in Balmy Blue and Misty Moonlight ink. The “Thanks” comes from Waterfront – a must-have set which has been around a few years but remains as versatile and useful as ever – and the gorgeous Misty Moonlight twine is from the Flowers for Every Season Combo Pack.

The spattering is done with a paintbrush. I wet the brush and then picked up some Balmy Blue ink from the ink pad lid, then tapped the brush on top to spatter the ink across the project. Very simple but very effective.

For the standard-sized cards, I stamped directly on to In Good Taste Designer Series Paper, which gives the card a look of texture without the bulk. Then I stamped as before, with larger stamps, using the Stamparatus and the same colours. I used various greetings; some from Beautiful Autumn and the congratulations sentiment is from Beautiful Friendship. 

The BIG celebration was my downline Sue, who celebrated her 10th anniversary as a Stampin' Up!® demonstrator. This is an amazing achievement but of course, she wouldn't have stuck around if it hadn’t been so much fun! 

On these cards, I spattered ink in both colours; Balmy Blue and Misty Moonlight. The water dilutes the colour for a soft effect.

I really enjoyed making these projects and it made a change from Christmas cards! I love how the trees look in blue and it just shows how In The Pines – which at appears at first glance to be a Christmas stamp set – offers so many more possibilities.

If you’d like to order this set – or anything else – please follow the link below and use the November 2020 host code RMK743TS if you’re spending less than £150. If you’re spending more than £150, please talk to me first and I will help you get the best value. 

 

Create beautiful sponged skies for In The Pines

I do love a sponging technique. And these cards take sponging to the max, with one of my favourites: the Northern Lights technique.

I’ve never been lucky enough to see the Northern Lights (although to be honest that’s no surprise as I’ve never gone out of my way to find them) but I really do enjoy creating the effect on a card.

And all you need are a few ink pads and some sponges.

 

I demoed this card and the In The Pines Bundle at a Stampin’ Up!® party recently (online, via Zoom, of course). It’s a lovely atmospheric effect which uses Blushing Bride, Seaside Spray, Misty Moonlight and Night of Navy ink pads.

The key with sponging, as I keep telling my customers, is to keep going. So many people give up too soon and are dissatisfied with the results. It will look horrible partway through, so plough on until you reach full colour saturation.

 

For this card, I dragged some Blushing Bride ink up from the bottom of the image, not worrying too much about blotches at the bottom as I knew I would be covering them with the trees. Then I blended in some Seaside Spray around them and across the whole of the centre of the card.

Working from the edges, I added some Misty Moonlight in an arc. Then finally, working from the top two corners, I added some depth with Night of Navy.

 

The trees are from the In The Pines stamp set but you may notice they are tall and thin. This is really easy to recreate. I just used the “background” stamps, not the detailed images, and stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black. I stamped the big trees then took the small slim tree and stamped on top to extend the trunk. Very simple and very effective.

To add the stars in the sky, I simply took some Craft Whisper White ink, diluted with water (1:1 ratio) and splattered this over the card using a fine paintbrush. I keep this diluted ink in an old embellishment pot so I can use it over and over again. A very little goes a LONG way!

 

The second card is a fine example of what you can make with those practice sheets, the bits that go “wrong” and a lesson in adaptability.

I had some earlier Northern Lights sheets which I hadn’t loved. In fact, I’d sponged the top, not loved it, turned it round and sponged the other end until I had a full sheet. Neither was quite what I was after so I played around and stamped black trees on top. Another practice sheet was used for more trees, which I die-cut using the Pine Woods Dies and popped up. Finally I felt I was getting somewhere, but REALLY wished I’d masked off a white moon. 

 

No problem! I simply die-cut a circle to represent the moon, and stamped my greeting inside. I did this by inking the one word of the greeting stamp at a time, using a Night of Navy Stampin’ Write Marker and cleaning thoroughly in between. 

 

It’s finished off with a slightly different splattering technique; this time I just used plain water, which soaks up some ink and leaves a more subtle snowy look in the sky. Finally, some Magenta Madness ribbon picks up the pink in the sky. 

Do you have trouble fitting your dies back into the pack? I nearly always do so was inspired to create a printed backing sheet, just like the one which comes with the Playful Alphabet dies. All I did was leave the dies in place and draw round them with a Journalling Pen. Now I not only don’t have to fiddle around to fit all the dies in, but I can see at a glance if one is missing. 

 

 

In The Pines distressed texture card

 

It’s all about trees for me at the moment and I have been having LOTS of fun with the In The Pines Bundle recently.

Today I would like to show you this very out-of-character project. Why out of character? Because it uses GREY. I don’t get the whole grey craze – grey walls, grey décor, grey clothes, grey cards. We have enough grey skies in this country without adding to the gloom!

But I pushed myself to use a little bit of Smoky Slate AND Basic Grey on this card, throwing in lots of texture to make it more “me”. 

As my backdrop, I have used the In Good Taste Designer Series Paper, which is SO versatile and even better, currently available at a 15% discount (until 31st October). 

 

I love this pack, which includes lots of lovely designs which give you the look of texture without the bulk. I mean, doesn’t that background look exactly like it’s been create with texture paste? Well it’s not – it’s printed paper and perfectly flat. For a change, and a blast from the past, I distressed the edges using the side of my Stampin’ Snips.

The patterned strip is from the same pack but I wanted it darker so I brayered on top of the design with some Smoky Slate ink. This is a great way of getting more mileage out of your Designer Series Paper. Brayer it, sponge it, stamp on it, colour in the images... these are all ways you can change the colour to make it fit your project.

As I’d already committed to using two sets of dies –  the Pine Woods Dies and Beautiful Boughs, I stuck with the latter for my labels. The greeting label uses the same die as the white panel behind it; it’s just trimmed down.

And the white panel behind is embossed using the Evergreen Forest 3D Embossing Folder. This was the first time I’d used this amazing folder but you’ll be seeing a lot more of it here next week.

The tree is stamped in Night of Navy onto Smoky Slate and die-cut. I’ve also painted over it using Wink of Stella to add some shine, but I’m not sure that comes out in the photo. Finally, some bling gives it another lift.

 

Hope you like it! Please come back on Thursday for another blog hop and some more trees! And if you are in the UK and are looking for a demonstrator, please get in touch or shop at my store using the link below. This month’s host code is ET479TKQ and if you use this when spending between £25 and £149, I’ll send you a thank you gift. (If you order over £150, don’t use the code as you will get your own Stampin’ Rewards.)

Home Together Dies masked moon card

Just playing around with the Home Together dies and trying to come up with projects for tomorrow’s Crafty Friday event over Zoom. This is the one that got away.

To make this, I die-cut a circle (any circle will do) from a Post-It Note and stuck it to my card. I sponged around this mask using Pool Party ink. Then I simply built up the layers using die-cut hills and trees in Whisper White cardstock.

I finished off with a greeting from In The Pines in Misty Moonlight ink and some Pool Party ribbon to add shimmer and pick up the Pool Party around the moon.

No sticky notes in the house? Simply use thin copier paper and some Tombow Multipurpose Adhesive. Apply a few small dots on your circle and allow them to dry fully. This turns it into a temporary adhesive so you can remove the mask with care.

 Take a look at some of the other fab projects you could make with these dies...

In The Pines meets Pinewood Planks for Christmas

 
I promised you more In The Pines bundle projects and here they are... this time with a Crumb Cake and Pinewood Planks vibe.

The stars of the show here are the Pine Woods Dies; in fact, the only stamps I've used from the In The Pines stamp set are the very handy Season’s Greetings and the tiny snow stamp.

For the landscape card, I die-cut some “hills” and three trees using the Pine Woods Dies. The small pine cones come from the Winter Woods stamp set. Unfortunately, I don’t have the coordinating In The Woods dies so had to fussy-cut them out. My fussy-cutting isn’t the most precise, as you can see!

The two Crumb Cake trees were sponged lightly with Crumb Cake ink to make them stand out a little more from the background.

For the portrait card, I slipped some In Good Taste Designer Series Paper behind the tree. It’s a little lost in the photo but I like the effect so plan to return to this design using a stronger contrast. I didn’t have any of those lovely Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels, but I am a crafter so I compromised... I used our standard Rhinestones and coloured them using a Poppy Parade Stampin’ Blend alcohol marker.

If you want to cut an aperture and emboss your cardstock, make sure you do the cutting first. If you do it the other way round, the act of cutting will squash your embossing.

That’s all for today but please come back on Saturday at 4pm for a World Card Making Day blog hop!