Snowy Kisses

This is my snippets card to kick off challenge #450 in over in the Snippets Playground. Go HERE to join in the fun!

Bad 'lighting engineer' work means the right hand side of the card is a bit washed out - sorry, Dudley is still learning the ropes, wink!

Sizeable snippets, although I didn't use some of the white card or the piece of vellum in the end

I used:

- 6" x 6" white card blank, made using a sheet of Strathmore Mixed Media Vellum Finish card to match the image panel-  side opening

- used a snippet of the Strathmore card for the image panel (I keep every little scrap - it's not cheap stuff!) using a Sweet Dixie stamp called 'Snowy Kisses' and a VersaFine Clair 'Nocturne' ink pad 

- then coloured the image using Arteza Watercolour pencils and a water brush - trying to pick up the background paper colours as much as possible

- added clear 'Wink of Stella' - to the snow on the trees, the snowballs on the ground and also the little poinsettia flower head - so cute!

- die cut the image panel using a 4" square die from Clarity Stamps 'Nested Square Heart Doodle Aperture Frame-Its' set

- stamped the sentiment onto the image panel using a die from Uniko's 'Most Wonderful' set of Christmas sentiments and a Hero Hues 'Granite' ink pad - the Misti was invaluable!

- then slightly trimmed a rather large snippet of holly patterned paper from LOTV's 'Woodland Wishes' paper pad down to 5.75" square and glued it onto the card front

- die cut a snippet of almost plain green paper from the same LOTV paper pad, using a Presscut die from their huge set of square dies. I did this having tried on a totally unusable piece of card first - to make sure both sizes lined up perfectly

- glued the green piece of die cut paper to the back of the image panel to highlight the pretty die cut edging around the image panel, I used a glue pen - two in fact, with different sized nibs for fear of spoiling all the work thus far!

- used very narrow pre-cut strips of double sided foam (from Amazon a while ago and very useful for a little more 'lift' than my much loved thin sticky pads) to stick around the back of the image panel with a few more pieces inside the area to add extra support

- then used Chrissie Stokes' tip, after removing the protection layer from the foam strips, I ran a glue stick over all the exposed 'sticky' to give it some 'wiggle room' rather than immediately setting itself firmly in place

- and that was it, all finished and one more for the 'Christmas Card box' - which is looking fairly healthy already!

Some things I encountered along the way:

- Arteza watercolour pencils are truly great and the more one uses them, the easier and more variable it becomes. I generally apply water colour pencil to the image and then 'draw it away' using a water pen. It's also a good option to pick up the colour with a water pen - directly from the pencil itself and darker colours tend to work best when doing this.

The use of the set of dies came about thanks to a snippets playmate Pat - I'd all but forgotten I have a set of these dies and one of Pat's recent lovely cards prompted me to dig it out for a first outing.The packaging is huge and it didn't fit into a NBUS basket so was languishing to one side. Thanks for that reminder Pat!

As always, my LOTV pads papers are continuing to gradually diminish in size. I had the foresight to buy some in digital form when it was apparent that digital was the route they were taking. I'm not keen on digital papers or images - but needs must when the devil drives!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:

Darnell's NBUS Challenge #48 - my NBUS is the Sweet Dixie stamp I used for the 'Snowy Kisses' image and the set of Clarity frame dies

Christmas Kickstart Challenge #72  - the theme is 'Wrapped Up For Christmas' and my 'snow people' are wrapped up in their scarves - as well as in one another judging by the carrot noses! Cute! x

Dudley Pupdate - he discovered blueberries during the week. I'd read that dogs rather liked them and so gave him one to try whilst preparing a little dessert for us humans - of fresh blueberries with strawberry kefir yoghurt. Of course, Dudley then ran away with his first one, as he does, to explore and try out his new 'single berry treat' in peace - thankfully on a tiled floor as am sure they will stain both him and anything else they come into contact with! After two return visits to ask for more, the novelty wore off - thankfully! 

As it is, Dudley flings his diced carrots all over the place with wild abandon - mostly as he sifts through his 'veggie dog-bowl' to make sure his much loved diced sweet peppers have all been eaten first. We're not particularly vegetarian but do try to supplement his breakfast of more traditional semi-dry dog foods with evening meals of steamed chicken, other cooked meats - 'preferably grilled steak' says Dudley, the treat of a boiled egg as well as fresh raw and safe veggies at least. 

Fat chance of grilled steak here - the country is in financial meltdown right now and Dudley has to knuckle down ......... and might even need to get a newspaper round at some point. Ha, just try telling HIM that one though! Truth be told - he actually gives SO much more than he ever asks for, just like all dogs do.