Whimsy Stamps ~ November Digital Release

Oh how I love Christmas! I know, I know, I won't break out into song just yet I promise, but honestly, I'm as doolally about Christmas crafting as I am Halloween crafting, so I'm excited to get into it! I had a bit of a hiccup with the post for our New Release because I had every creation bar one ready to add to the post only to realise, that one of the team had thought I was creating with this image and I thought she was, so neither did! Better late than never though and I whipped up this cutie last night ready to share today. Murphy's Law it should be raining here today, so not a lot of natural light, but I still managed to get an okay pic.

How sweet is this adorable image?! She was on my list to colour up this month because she SO reminds me of one of my sweet nieces. So I coloured her up to look a little like her. She lives in Australia, so won't be having a Winter Christmas like this, but I still thought it would be a fun Christmas card for her. This adorable image is called Fairy Sweet and is of course from our super talented Whimsy artist Crissy Armstrong. I so totally adore her sweet characters, most especially her sweet children. 

So I've had great fun colouring up this cutie. I used BG69, 66, 63 and 60 on the lovely woollen hat, mittens and her dress. For her wings I used BG72, 70, 10, 000 and 0000. I then covered her wings in Wink of Stella and also added some Gelly Roll along the veins for extra sparkle. For the sweet seal pup I used Copic colours BG01, 000 and 0000 and a little E04 and E93 on the nose. I used a mix of browns for the boots and coat, from E55 - E50 and for her hair chose E49 - E44.

I started this card by masking off the top and bottom of the card and inking up the lovely tartan background rubber stamp from Whimsy Stamps with Memento Paris Dusk. I had no idea at this point where I was going with it, I was just playing. It looked lovely with the borders top and bottom, almost like a strip of washi tape. I was playing with Distress Inks a day later and decided to mask off the stamped area and ink blend that central panel, again, no idea where I was heading with this, just playing. I opted for shades of blue distress ink, Speckled Egg in the centre, then Peacock Feathers and finally Blueprint Sketch around the outside. I really love how well the Blueprint Sketch toned with the Memento Paris Dusk. It's not a perfect match but does work well. I splattered the ink blended background with water and then with watered down Pearl acrylic paint by Adirondack to create a snowy backdrop. I then stamped the trees in white pigment ink from a Whimsy Stamps clear stamp set on either side of the card to frame the characters and heat embossed them in white embossing powder to make the images pop more against the background. The final touch, was to add a little copic grey to the area under the characters feet, to ground them. 

I used a sweet sentiment from another Whimsy Stamps set as I really wanted to add the word 'believe' on this. I think it adds that magical air. I chose to stamp it in Black, because the white wasn't showing well enough against that ink blended background. I popped the characters up on foam to give them a bit of dimension against the background and I was all done. A really fun crafty adventure. 

I really need to get cracking with my Christmas crafting, this time of year rolls around and I never do manage to get everything done I want to in preparation for Christmas, but I'm sure gonna try! So I'll be back again soon with another crafty adventure. In the meantime, click through on the link above if you'd like to see our digital release at Whimsy Stamps, there are some really sweet images this month and you can check out what the rest of the team did with them all, on the Whimsy Stamps Inspiration Blog. See you again soon, hugs xoxo