Whimsy Stamps ~ Gnome So Thankful

Hey crafty friends, I'm back with a cute card I've made to send to Crissy Armstrong for Christmas. I adore her images and her gnomes are some of my absolute favourites, so I took great joy colouring up this cutie for her. I used a gorgeous paper from the Whimsy Slimline Range called SurReally Cool Christmas to create the background. 

I coloured and fussy cut the little hill of mushroom houses from the stamp set to extend the paper in a toning shade of green. I cut the slimline panel in half, so it was the right width for the A2 card front, but it was too short so I added plain cardstock to matt the lower half and then built up my layers over this. I cut two little hills free hand from some white glitter cardstock and added those over the little hill scene to complete the card front. I trimmed all the edges with my Tim Holtz Deckle Edge Trimmer.

I love these sweet Tomte style gnomes, they remind me of Sweden and of my bestie over there. My absolute favourite artistic interpretation of these sweet Swedish gnomes are Crissy's. She captures their charm and has managed to stay quite true to the Swedish folklore imagery, whilst still bringing her own flavour and style to them. I coloured this cutie and the hillside with Copic Markers. I had initially coloured the hillside in YG67, 63 and 61, but realised I needed to make it tone better with the paper, so went over the top with BG18, 15 and 13. My darkest red is R59, then for the gnome I used R89, 39, 37 and 35, but for the toadstool house caps, I switched the R30's for R20's, R29, 27 and 24. I used cool greys for the gnome's beard and warm greys for the toadstool bases.

I used a lovely cardstock from Spellbinders called Blue Spruce to diecut the Sweet word from, it toned beautifully with the background paper. I wanted a little subsentiment to finish the phrase, but didn't have the right stamps or size in my stash, so pulled out the Tim Holtz Idea-ology Sticker Book from this year and found a perfect little sentiment to fit beneath the word die. I was really happy with the finished look. I just added some dimension behind the mushroom caps, so they sat proud of the background a little and the wee gnome was added with foam for dimension too. 

I need to get cracking on Christmas wrapping, so may slow down with posts soon, but just really wanted to share a few of these last minute cards I've been making after the big batch I did for Mum. Ironically, she phoned tonight asking for some more cards, so I'll be working on those for her as we get into the quieter days after Christmas, as this request was for birthday and get well cards. So lovely she's enjoying my creations so much.

Thanks for popping in to visit today. I still have a few more Christmas makes to share, so I'll be back soon I hope with another crafty adventure. Until then, hugs and happy Advent, Wends xoxo

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