And then it was mid-December! Well, almost! <3
Hello crafty friends, I hope you are all having a fabulous week. I am feeling super proud of myself because I finally have my Christmas cards all written, my Christmas newsletter designed & printed and tucked into each envelope, and yesterday Piper and I posted them all. I love the feeling of being organised… even though it rarely lasts long because the To Do list seems to be perpetual! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by today – I have got a fun shaker card for you guys today featuring this cute bear from the Bear Necessities stamp set from SimonSaysStamp. This little guy totally inspired my card because in the stamp set there is also a stamp for his cute little furry butt! LOL. So I decided to make the front of my card transparent so you can see the bear from the front, and from behind him.
To create the project, I used watercolour cardstock – which is a bit more sturdy than standard cardstock – so I find that shaker cards stand up more easily when the card is a bit thicker. I cut two frames using the Mama Elephant Park Avenue frame die, and then used the Lawn Fawn simple stitched hillside border dies to cut a hilly mound from the inside panels of both frames. I cut them both together, back to back, so when I put them on the card (one on the front and one on the back of the shaker) they would line up perfectly.
I used the same watercolour cardstock to create a back panel for my card. I cut it at 5.5 ” x 4.5′, and then scored the smaller side at 4.25″. This creates a A2 piece of card with a 0.25″ flap. I can then adhere one of the frames to the flap to join the front and back panels together, before sticking some acetate on top.
For the ‘shaky bits’ I am using this cool new Honey Bee Stamps Embellishment calls ‘Ice Chips Glitter’. It almost looks like tiny shards of glass, and in a shaker it looks like glistening snow! The best thing about these Ice Chips is that they are super thin- so I only need one layer of foam tape around my frame. Normally with seed beads and sequins you need two layers so there is enough room for the shaky bits to move around, but these Ice Chips work a treat with one layer – so it makes the card much easier to post!
I use my MISTI tool to align the frame on top with the one underneath (or you can use a score board), and I made sure to use a powder tool on the inside of the acetate and around the foam tape to remove any static or sticky residue.
I then stuck down the snowy mounds on the front and back of the shaker – and these hide the Ice Chips perfectly when the card is standing up, so it is extra fun when you pick up the card and discover it has snow inside! heehee.
On the inside of the card, I wanted to create a sky landscape. First I stuck down a rectangle of matching cardstock (cut using the Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle dies) and to go on top I used a piece of cardstock that was lying on my desk from a previous project . I had inked it up using peacock feathers, wilted violet and chipped sapphire distress ink. I added some faux stitching around the edges using a Lawn Fawn stitched rectangle die, and then moved over the greeting which says ‘Happy Holidays’. This is a sweet greeting from the Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together set. In the set it was one combined image, but I wanted to stack the words one above the other, so I used my scissors to carefully snip the two words apart.
After the greeting was embossed, I added a little snow with a SimonSaysStamp Falling Snow stencil and some embossing paste, making sure that i used washi tape to cover the greeting first, as I didn’t want the snowfall to interfere with the message. I would recommend that you set this aside to dry for about an hour before moving on, but I was impatient, so kept going, but had be mindful so i didn’t smudge the embossing paste!
Now over to the rest of the stamping! I used the bear from the Bear Necessities stamp set from SimonSaysStamp – using both the front and back image of the bear. I used a baby wipe to remove the ink from the bear’s mouth before stamping as I wanted to add a nice smile to him later on. Because I was using copic markers, I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Neenah cardstock. I also stamped a cute santa hat (from Lawn Fawn Toboggan Together) and two presents which are from the MyFavoriteThings Beast Friends set. I specifically chose these presents because they are symmetrical, therefore I can place them back to back without gaps showing. I used some simple copic blending to colour in the images, and went back in with my markers to add dots to the bear to give the illusion of fur!
The little bear does have a coordinating die but I unfortunately don’t own it, so I fussy cut the bear with my fiskars scissors, leaving a small white border. Next I added some repositionable adhesive on the back, held the project up to the light and tired really hard to line up the images, sticking them back to back. Then i used my scissors to trim around the bear’s bottom. This meant that when I stuck one bear on top, and the other behind, the cut lines matched up perfectly! I added the cute presents with some glue dots in the same way! Did you notice the hat? I made sure that the top of Mister Bear’s head was over the frame so I could put the hat onto it, as I didn’t have an inverted image for the reverse. I don’t think its very noticeable from the inside because its on the frame. heehee!
To finish the card, I added a little greeting on the inside – once again from the Toboggan together Lawn Fawn set, but I stamped it in Wisteria SSS ink so it coordinates nicely with the inked sky! I also (of course) added some glaze pen to the eyes and nose of the bear, and stamped a little mouth onto him using a stamp in the Mama Elephant page huggers set. I think it makes him look very dapper!
Just as I was finishing up, I noticed that some of my Ice Chips Glitter was ‘leaking’ out from my card – there must have been a hole between my foam tape. So I took some glossy accents and used it to plug the hole along the edge of the card (a bit like caulking around a bathtub! HAHA)
And that is the card done! WOOHOO!
Thank you for joining me today, I hope you enjoyed the card. Please do leave a like on the video or a comment to make me smile! At the moment I am working on an extra special card to share with you guys shortly so I will see you guys then!
Have a crafty day!
