Snowy Cabin Christmas cards

Well, my snippets cards are appropriate with all the snowfall most of the UK has had this past week! I made eight cards in one go, over a few days and here are a couple of examples:

I used:

- white A6 card blanks, both side opening and tent style

- then got out my LOTV much loved blue 'Frosty Christmas' and 'Krafty Christmas' paper pads and hauled a load of snippets from the 'halved envelopes' that I pop into the backs of all my paper pads to store snippets

- covered the fronts of all the cards with papers from one or other of the paper pads and, as I expected, most of them were snippets

- die cut the circular scene from a white snippet (I found a load of these whilst looking for the A6 cards) - using a Memory Box 'Snowy Cabin Circle' die

- backed the die cuts with 'snowy' patterned LOTV papers to tone with the background papers I'd added to the card fronts. I die cut them using a Tonic Studios circle die and then glued to the back of the circular scene before reinforcing with a further white card die cut circle

- some parts of the cabin had fully popped out when being die cut, so I added contrasting die cut snippets back into the outline - all still from the same two paper pads 

- coloured the cabin windows (which hadn't popped out - hooray!) with a yellow Polychromos pencil. I would NOT have fancied inlaying those - or even backing the window frames with half inch or less square yellow snippets

- the sentiments were both from a lovely set of NBUS stamps by Creative Expressions called 'Festive Wishes'. Some were stamped onto the 'snow' itself and some were stamped onto circles of white card which had been die cut using a The Works die from a set called 'Circle Stitches'. The inks I used are Brilliance Dewdrop 'Pearlescent Beige' and Hero Hues 'Granite'

- then added all the die cut and sentiment circles onto the card fronts using thin sticky pads

- final touch to the cards with the circular sentiments was to add a few self-adhesive clear Memory Box 'Fairy Drops' to the bottom left corner for a bit of balance

Would I make eight almost the same in one go using the Snowy Cabin die ever again? Probably yes - but I'd simplify the layers/design/process for sure!

One thing I did try for the first time was a tip I picked up from Jennifer McGuire which is to make a 'jig' when stamping repeatedly onto the same die cut shape - for both the cabin circle and the sentiment circle. It's hard to explain without a video but here goes:

- I wanted three sentiments all the same, using the same stamp on the small die cut circles and opted to die cut and then stamp afterwards - for a sentiment on a circle you can do it either way - but I was also facing stamping onto five of the circular scenes later on

- to make the 'jig' I hopped around from one foot to the other and did a merry dance took a piece of spare card (another snippet) and die cut then removed the stitched circle

- popped the spare piece of card with the die cut circular aperture into my small Misti, held it in place with a magnet, then slipped a snippet of copy paper underneath the hole before lining up the 'Cosy Christmas Wishes' sentiment stamp in the aperture, and picking it up with the Misti lid

- for reassurance I then did a test stamp onto the piece of paper - spot on as well!

- then, one by one, I just popped die cut circles into the aperture, re-inked the stamp on the lid, made sure the 'jig' was still seated into the corner (even with a magnet bar I now always double check) and stamped them - one after the other 

Here's the 'jig' set up with a die cut circle in place ready to stamp - using the stamp which is in position on the lid. Another time I would perhaps use a piece of contrasting card when creating the jig but the white obviously did the job:

Flushed with success - I then stamped the sentiments onto the die cut cabin scenes in the same way. Just used the plain die to cut the bigger aperture, popped the complete scene in place, lined the sentiment up where I wanted it and followed the same process as I did for the small circular sentiments. I added a little pencil mark to the outside of the aperture so I could line up the smoke every time to make sure the sentiment was stamped straight.  

I would like to enter the top one of the cards into Darnell's NBUS Challenge #48 as it was a first outing for both the 'Snowy Cabin' die and the 'Festive Wishes' sentiments stamp set. 

Dudley Pupdate: We had 'zoomies' from Dudley around the back garden mid-week, once he got used to 4" of snow. His little legs looked so short, no piccies or video sorry to say -  but he did race around in pure joy, as always.

We did have a laugh earlier this week, decided to try once again to hide the pretty gross (albeit not smelly, thank goodness) 'Honka Duck' ...... when Dudley was totally elsewhere in the house.

I was at my desk in the craft room when he bounded back upstairs - and both of us - Len in his study and me with one eye open for 'the wee beastie' - kept our heads down. Within less than a couple of minutes of him looking for that flipping duck, if that - I spotted Dudley out of the corner of my eye.

AND, I also saw the 'evil Havi look'! He was stood like a statue on a bottom corner of our bed rather like an angry 'moon gazing hare' - literally glaring upwards. At the exact place in a built in wardrobe, where horrible, chewed old Honka, his most loved treasure, was hidden on a high shelf! He truly was absolutely furious and he just KNEW where Honka was! Amazing sense of smell and I think this is one battle we've lost! 

Sometimes I wonder who is the 'boss' here - don't answer that, we already know that it has four legs and a fluffy tail!

Remember that we're halfway through Sarn's Challenge #449 and the latest picks and prize winner are over HERE on the Snippets Playground!

Love, as always, Dudley and yours truly xxx