Winter Challenge at Spellbinding Stamps

Howdy & Happy Friday to everyone!

I’m thrilled to be here today to share with you the latest challenge at Spellbinding Stamps. This week we’re celebrating everything WINTER!! Yay!

I confess, I’m the weirdo that actually likes winter. I know – you’re all wrinkling up your noses right now. Winter is my second favorite season next to fall. Nothing like spending a snowy day inside where it’s warm and toasty, sipping a hot chocolate and watching the beautiful snowflakes drifting down from the sky. Have you ever actually looked at a snowflake up close as it lands on your window. They really are a thing of beauty and no two are alike.

So to celebrate our winter  challenge this week and everything that is snowy, I’m using the Spellbinding Stamp called Aelita & Jax.

Obviously Aelita is probably not what you’d consider a traditional “winter” image in her cute little dress and no jacket, but the beauty of coloring and card making is that you can bring your image to life through it’s surroundings as well as through coloring. That is what I tried to do with Aelita and her cute winged kitty, Jax.

First I colored the image with my Copics. I tried to choose a color scheme that come across as cold so I chose the lighter shades of blue and green and then I also added some darker purpleish-blue as a contrast color (I will list all the colors I use at the end of this post). I actually liked how it turned out. In case you’re wondering, I don’t actually plot out how I’m going to color something. I just pick the colors I like for the image and dive into coloring. Sometimes it works and sometimes I scrap the whole thing and start over with new colors.

Once I was finished coloring my image, I cut her out and set her aside so that I could work on my background.

I had some cute snowflake stamps and dies that I’d not had a chance to use so I dug them out and began to play with them and my Gelatos from Faber Castell.

First I stamped my snowflakes with Versamark and embossed them with some Super Fine White Embossing powder.

I settled on the metallic blue, purple and green shades of Gelatos to coordinate with the colored image of Aelita & Jax. I’d rubbed two different colors of Gelato on each embossed snowflake, made sure they had fully covered the snowflake by rubbing them in with my finger and then misted them with a little water and used a water brush to mix the colors a bit within the snowflake. When I was satisfied with how they looked I set them aside to dry so that I could die cut them later.

For my background, I took a piece of Neenah Solar White Cardstock in 110lb and stamped it with a snowy backdrop stamp and some more Versamark and then used more of my Super Fine White Embossing powder to heat emboss it. I did a second layer of the snowy backdrop and stamped it a little offset from my original placement and heat embossed it with some  Bridal Tinsel embossing powder. It gave the snow a nice glittery effect kinda like snow looks when the sun hits it. The fun part was the fine coating of the glittery embossing powder that ended up on my desk to which I’d threatened to blow onto my husband as if he’d been attacked by a glittery fairy, LOL! Of course he threatened to spray me with water if I did. No fun!

Once my snowy backdrop was done, I die cut it with my favorite scalloped die and then used some Shaded Lilac and Broken China distress ink to give the appearance of a cloudy, snowy sky on the top portion of the background.

Next, I used another piece of Neenah Solar White cardstock and used my Stitched Hillside Borders dies to create two snow covered hills. I also die cut the bottom and side edges with my scalloped rectangle die so that it would align with the bottom of the card evenly.

Once my die cuts were done, I assembled them onto my background in layers to give a dimensional effect to the card. I placed Aelita & Jax onto the middle layer to give the illusion of them walking through the snow covered hills. I stamped my “Let it Snow” sentiment on the top layer and used some blue embossing powder on it and heat set it.

Finally I added my die cut snowflakes for more color and dimension to the card.

There’s no better way to beat the wintery blues than coloring and crafting, right? What better opportunity than the Winter challenge from Spellbinding Stamps by Nikki  Burnette?!

Head on over to the Spellbinding Stamps blog to check out what our other uber-talented DT ladies have created for this challenge and be inspired and then join in on the fun.  We’d love to see what wintery creations you can put together. As always, we’d love for you to use a Nikki Burnette image, but it is not necessary to enter the challenge. If you’d like to check out the stamps in the Etsy store  you can find them here.

Be sure to share your creations in our Facebook group so you can inspire and encourage others as well!

Below is the listing of colors used for the image & snowflakes:

Copic Colors Used:

Dress/Hat: B69, B66, Bg34, BG10, B12, B04, Y00, Yo2, C2, C0, G0000, Y28

Hair: E53, E43, E57

Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, E04, R20

Cat: W1, W4, W5, E42, E43, E44

Gelatos (Snowflakes):

Metallic Blueberry

Metallic Grape

Metallic Mint