Whimsy Stamps ~ Happy Holidays

Hey my lovely crafty friends, I hope your November is going well. I'm crafting like crazy trying to get a few cards out to my lovely friends and family for Christmas. This year it seems somehow so much more important than other years, with all the craziness we've been experiencing globally, the distance and isolation experienced by so many. I won't get many sent, but I'm trying! I've decided not to stress myself trying to ensure they're all 'holiday' cards. Isn't it just nice to get a card?! I'm thinking of you and whatever I send it will be full of love, hand crafted and with you in my thoughts as I created it, so I've decided not to stress about the little things and just to share a little love in the way of a hand crafted card. This wee cutie will be going to a friend for the holidays who loves gnomes. So holiday themed or not, it will be coming with lots of love and happy holiday wishes!

I've used a gorgeous floral themed paper from Whimsy Stamps called Calico as the base of the card design. I just love the joyful bright colours and paired with the navy, I think makes such a lovely card base. I had some 'waste' strips from some diecutting I'd done with a slimline scalloped edge die and I thought they were so pretty even though they were the 'negatives' from the diecutting. So I stashed them to use at some point and when I was prepping this card they were happily in the right cardstock colour to work perfectly! So I added the little strips top and bottom to frame the image panel. I know if you live in the Northern Hemisphere it will seem crazy sending a Summery card for the holidays, but here in New Zealand, it's moving into Summer! So our holidays will hopefully be sunny and warm. So it actually feels kind of like sending some of our sunshine to colder climes, sending this to England for the holidays!

As you likely can tell, I've watercoloured this image. I've used my Distress Ink Markers to do this in various shades. I don't have a lot of the markers, but enough to bring this little scene together, so was quite pleased with this. I'm still learning and sometimes my colours come out too rich and other times, like with the sky on this, it dries away too light. So more play is definitely needed, but I enjoyed using a different medium for this creation, than I usually do. I'm hoping to have more of a play over the next few months and experiment a little more with watercolour mediums. I've always loved the effect of watercolour, it's soft and dreamy and I like it very much, but do feel more confident with the stronger and definite tones of Alcohol colouring. I added a bit of sparkle to the butterfly and some accents to the mushrooms with gelly roll pens in white and stardust sparkle.

I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure, I've a couple more cards I'd like to share before the end of the month and it's racing at us with breakneck speed, so I need to get a move on! Have a fabulous day and I'll see you again soon. Hugs, Wends xoxo