WOW Glitter – The Art of Cobwebs

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: “How could it be so?”
“It came with out ribbons! It came without tags!”
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought, “doesn’t come from a store.”
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

Where I live, my neighbours and I are surrounded by huge pine trees. 80 feet (plus) tall. Now I have to admit that I love them, they give my garden some wonderful cool shade in the summer months, and offer protection in the winter. However there’s a downside to these fabulous trees – because in the autumn and winter months they shed pine needles like crazy and bury all our gardens under a deep carpet of them, – and they also shed pine cones.

(Which my dog loves! She sits in the garden, staring up at the trees, waiting for the pine cones to drop, … and the minute they do, she chases round the garden to collect them and promptly brings them into the house as a present for me.).

I wanted to make Christmas cards for some of my neighbours which had some sort of personal ‘thing’ about them, so I chose my stamps to include a pine cone and also a silhouette of a large black cat … as a representation of one of my cats – who all my neighbours know.

I’m owned by three felines. One is a very old lady who’s almost 19 years old and the ‘boss’ (and how!) of the trio, and the two others are loveable rascals of two years old who love nothing better than to play Cowboys and Indians at breakneck speed through my cottage!. One of these youngsters is a beautiful, huge, luxurious, black velvet coated beastie, called Alfie. He’s way too heavy for me to pick up – but not overweight; long, tall, sleek, powerfully built, adept at walking along the edge of a high fence with such elegance, which makes his muscles ripple like that of a panther. However, he’s a big softy, who loves a chinny tickle, and who has the teeniest meow you’ve ever heard!

To make this card; I began by masking off a circle on the card, which was to be the moon, and also masked off where I wanted to put in a snow drift so that it added depth to the card. I blended three ink pad colours; two blue Memento Archival Ink pads, and a tiny touch from a black Ranger Archival ink pad. The photographs haven’t captured the true colours of this card. The blues are a little darker than they show here, making the whole scene very much like the sky at midnight, on Christmas Eve.

Once the sky and snow drifts were in place I then went straight into stamping: I Stamped the Pine trees on the snow drift, and then the crescent wreath shape, using the second generation stamping method which I’ve talked previously about in the Christmas cards which I posted about over the past few days.

B day 4 Seasons Greetings 31.10.2014 — a section of the card, in close up, to show the second generation stamping method. (click on photograph and it will open up, in a much larger size, but remember to click ‘back’ on your browser window so that you come back to this post to continue reading).

I wanted to add a tiny bit of colour , so stamped some small red flowers to represent Christmas Poinsettia flowers, and stamped the pine cones in a dry brown colour.

Next came the Seasons Greetings sentiment – which I wanted to be in gilding flakes, so I stamped the words using Cosmic Shimmer Flake and Glitter Glue, and then used Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Flakes to gild the stamped words.

Following this I added some glitter to the snow drift and the wreath, using a fine nibbed glue pen and Wow glitters; and then used a Graph It white marker pen to add snow ‘dots’ falling against the dark sky, and also added ‘snow’ onto some of the branches of the wreath, where snow would have settled naturally.

And that’s all there is to it!

I had fun with this card – and I have to admit that I really love the finished article.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing a few minutes of your day with me. I’ve loved have your company.

Have a truly fabulous, blessed, rest of your day.

I loved making this Christmas card.

I wanted to make some night-time Christmas cards . . . but I wanted ones which weren’t the typical ‘cottage with the lamp in the window’ views, nor the: ‘Santa driving his sleigh across the moon’ type of thing. These sorts of card are really lovely, pretty cards. But they weren’t what I had in mind to make. I wanted to make something more ‘edgy’. Christmas night sky – but with a difference.

Made using only Card-io Stamps for the images on the card. I began by first making a mask for the moon – which I cut from a post it note, using the sticky part of the post it as part of the circle, so that I could attach it to the card without any fear of it marking the card when I removed it.

After getting the moon in place, I then ‘put in’ the snow drifts and then stamped some trees. I added the birds flying in the sky, and then chose a black fine tipped pen and drew a swirly line around the left hand side of the card and across the top. To this I ‘pegged’ some stars, (in three sizes), some hearts and some Christmas Trees. The hearts I coloured in red, the trees in green, and the stars: I coloured some in icy blue; some in Gold glitter from a Glitter It pen, and some in sparkly Silver, again from a Glitter It pen.

I then added ‘snow’ to the snow drifts – using Pinflair Glitter Glue and Pinflair Snow Dust. (see close up, above, of a section of the card so that you could see the Snow Dust). I then took a fine tipped glue pen and added some tiny dots of glue, which I sprinkled some glitter dust on to make twinkly dots in the sky. Finally, just to finish the night scene off, I used a Graph It marker in White, to add ‘snow’ dots to the scene.

And that, – as they say in some of those TV shows, – is all there is to it.

This card was seriously simple to make, and I really like the way it turned out.

I pretty much think I’ve told you everything I’ve used to make this card as I was walking you through what I did to make it. The only things I think I’ve left out are: I used Whisper Archival ink pads in three shades of blue and also in a sage green (only the teeniest bit of this). I also used Ranger Archival Ink pad in black, and used Staedtler fine liner coloured pens to colour in the trees, stars and hearts. Finally – the glitter I used was from a collection of glitters by WOW.

If I’ve missed anything and you want to know just ask using the comment box.

Thank you for coming and visiting. I’m always so thrilled when I get visitors, and even more chuffed beyond measure when someone leaves a ‘like’ or comment for me, so please feel free to comment away!