Jingle Bells Reindeer Games

Hello, Tallie here. In the last few weeks in the run up to Christmas, I find I need some quick and simple cards to give to those who suddenly surprise you with an extra Christmas card. With designs like this one, you can colour up a bunch of characters in advance and create the simple scenes as and when is needed.

This cute little reindeer from the MFT Reindeer Games stamp set is a perfect size for a centre piece in this card design. I stamped him out in some MFT Extreme Black ink onto some blending cardstock and coloured him in with my alcohol markers. I die cut him out with the coordinating dies once finished.

The background is really simple. I've mentioned before that I have a DIY stencil made from a circle die cut (I used the 2 inch size from this set) from some thick acetate. I blended on some Distress Oxide inks in Picked Raspberry and Broken China. I love the purple-ly blend you get when you mix these two colours!

A bit of foam tape, some red ribbon and a white jingle bell help to dress up the simple reindeer. The sentiment is a strip from the MFT Bitty Holiday Wishes stamp set.

I hope you've finished all your Christmas cards and there are no last minute panics!

Thanks for reading, catch you next week.

Tallie

Peace, Love and Joy Reindeer Scenes

Hello, Tallie here with some more Christmas inspiration.

It's an MFT week for me and at first I thought I was going to have to bin these backgrounds before they ever made it to a card base. Sometimes, you just have to keep going and it turns out okay in the end! I used three different MFT products: Peace, Love and Joy stencil, Reindeer Games stamp set and the Bitty Holiday Wishes sentiments.

I started out by inking some Versamark ink over the MFT Peace, Love and Joy stencil onto a white card panel. For the first one, I tried not taping it down to my surface whilst inking and I didn't get a very good impression on the card - this one I actually used for the second card presented further below. For my second try, I used some washi tape to fix the stencil and panel down to my surface, carefully making sure the ink covered all the stencil. I then clear heat embossed it using some Lawn Fawn Clear Embossing Powder. The end result was not completely perfect, but I liked the distressed-not-perfect look I ended up with.

I used my favourite winter sky Distress Ink combination to blend on some ink: Faded Jeans, Peacock Feathers and Cracked Pistachio.

For the focal images, I stamped out the reindeer, trees and cardinal from the Reindeer Games stamp set. I coloured these in with my alcohol markers and cut them out with the coordinating dies. I popped these up with some foam tape and layered them over a simple die cut circle (this happened to be the centre of a Merry Christmas Circle Frame but any circle die will work) in the centre of the background panel.

The sentiments were stamped from the MFT Bitty Holiday Wishes set with some VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink, clear heat embossed and cut into small strips. A little foam tape makes them stand out from the background panel underneath the main focal images.

I turned the first, almost-failed panel into another card. So a lesson for me today - don't give up before you at least try it out!

Thanks for reading, catch you next week.

Tallie

  

It's a Penguin Parade!

Hello, Tallie here with you today!

I say this every time Mama Elephant come out with one of these sets, but I love the new Penguin's Waddle stamp set. They are so great for practising your colouring and you have a scene card created without much effort.

I started out with the A6 background panel, ink blending on some of my favourite wintery sky Distress Oxide colours: Faded Jeans, Mermaid Lagoon and Cracked Pistachio. The key to getting good dimensional layers in a snowy background is three different layers: 1) clean water splatters, 2) bigger splats of white acrylic using a larger brush, and 3) smaller splats of white acrylic using a smaller brush or toothbrush.

I stamped out the penguins from the Mama Elephant Penguin's Waddle stamp set in some MFT Extreme Black Ink onto some blending card stock. I coloured the cute little scene in with my alcohol markers, sticking to some warm greys, purples and pinks for the colour scheme. If I added another colour (like the yellow) I tried to use the 'rule of threes' and place it in three different places on the card to balance it. I cut this out with the coordinating die and foam mounted it to my background panel.

I'm a big fan of simple sentiments so the new MFT Bitty Holiday Wishes Stamp Set has all sorts of sentiments to choose from. I chose one with a line from one of my favourite Christmas songs and white heat embossed it onto a strip of black card, foam mounting it above the penguins.

A few touches of Glossy Accents and the card is finished!

Try out your own scene cards!

Catch you next week.

Tallie