...cards with Boards and Beams

... and an award
My PTI box arrived on the 4th of July and I've been in it all weekend, here's what I've come up with, all christmas of course. The moment I saw this set on the PTI website I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I love wee houses - I used to carve them out of clay years ago and what a treat it was to see this set - It is my idea of perfection. - I can't wait to see what the next release will be.

The first card uses 'selective' embossing with white embossing powder to make it look as if the house is covered in snow/frost, the idea is that it's night time and the winter moon is highlighting the frosty house. I have made up a mini tutorial to show how I did this incase anyone wants to know. I used a large spot from polka dot basics to make the moon.

I coloured the shadows with watercolour paints and pencil and I added fine glitter to give a snowy sparkle.

Both cards have snow (glitter) on the roof and one 'lighted' window each.

In the second card Santa flies high above the house in the moonlight. I curved the Believe stamp on my acrylic block before stamping it in white on the card - I like the way it echoes the tiny shape of Santa on his Sleigh, I had to paint this on, but I would just love it if Nichole of PapertreyInk decided to include a teeny Santa and sleigh in her intended Christmas add-ons for this set.


Selective Embossing Tutorial
I made up this wee tutorial in case anyone wanted to know how I did the card. I'm sure this is probably a well known technique to all you pro's out there but I thought I was pretty nifty when I thought of doing this.

Step 1. Stamp the house in Indigo ink - pour over white embossing powder. Stamp and powder the fence on either side.

Steps 2 and 3. Take a very fine brush and start to brush the powder off in the areas that would be in the shadows - for example under the front porch, and a little off the fence under where the trees will be. Don't forget the eaves and to the right of the windows. Use the heat gun to emboss the remaining powder. Indigo ink will show where you brushed powder off - this is good.

Step 4. Make a mask of the fence using scratch paper.

Step 5. Stamp and powder the tree. Repeat on the other side.

Step 6. Use your brush to dislodge a little powder on the underside of the trees to make shadows. Stamp and powder a moon - I used a large dot from the polka dot basics stamp set (bear in mind the final size of the card you are making when deciding where to set the moon.). Use the heat gun to emboss the remaining powder.

Step 7. Use the colouring method of your choice to add depth to the shadows.

Step 8. Cut out the windows - I cut the bottom windows out completely and just the panes out of the top three windows so that the snowy window sashes remain.

Step 9. Stamp the windows from the bottom of the house onto your window material - I used sparkly vellum in a grey/blue. Cut out the window material so that there is enough vellum to cover the 4 bottom windows.

Step 10. Adhere the windows to the reverse of the house ensuring that the bottom two windows are in the correct place. Stick a piece of yellow card behind the top window. Add glitter to your image as you please.

Your image is now ready to be trimmed and added to your card.

If you click on the image it should get bigger.


awardI want to take the opportunity to Thank Emily Davis of Ems closet for giving me an award. http://inemscloset.blogspot.com
Emily has been extremely positive about all my work and I am very grateful. It gives me great encouragement to continue posting my stuff. I haven't seen this before so please forgive me if it takes a few days to pass it on.