Merry Monday, BA Inspiration with Winter Foliage Stamps and Matching Dies

Good morning, Julie here with some more ideas and inspiration to encourage you to make a start on your Christmas makes. Today I'm using the Winter Foliage stamps and matching dies and a new to me technique I stumbled across on You Tube recently. Here's a look at the three designs I came up with.

I was looking at a Marion Emberson video and she was raving about a video of a technique she'd just seen, so I went to look too. In the You Tube video, Ann Melvin uses Kitchen paper to die cut foliage to give a 3D effect. You Tube also suggested another video here that pre dates the first by the Memory Box guy. Thinking this looked something I could use for my post I had a play. 

I wont go into the process of making the die cuts as the video does it much better but I will explain how I made each card!

My first card uses a couple of the pine branches and pine cones, together with a text panel I made a couple of years ago.

         

Once I had cut out my elements, I added some water colour paint to the die cuts and left to dry. Using the left over from the die cutting, I placed it in my MISTI to use as jig to stamp my elements with the matching stamps. The boughs I stamped with Evergreen Bough DI and the cone with Ground Espresso DI. Now in the video there was no mention of the layers parting from one another which happened to mine, but a little dab of glue secured them back together! To make it more Christmassy, I added in some Inka Gold wax watered down with a little plain water, with a fine paint brush.

My panel was made for this BA post a couple of years ago, the process is quite involved so I made a load at the same time and kept them for use later! I trimmed the background panel, clear embossing on kraft, then added stamped and die cut elements. The finished panel was finished with a twine bow and added to my off white, A6, base card.

This second card uses two of the holly leaves and one of the berry clusters over another sentiment stamped background. This time I kept it very simple and just added a circle from the bits box, stamped with Season's Greetings from Christmas Sentiments and the holly and berries. 

My text panel was slightly too small for an A6 base card, so I trimmed it down to leave a thin, white border down both sides. The holly was painted as before with watercolour, then stamped in Pine Needles DI and the berries I left unstamped, just watercoloured and a few dots of white gel pen. This time I added some Wink of Stella to the die cut and stamped elements.

My final card uses the last of the holly leaves and berry cluster in a more contemporary slimline design.

After adding water colour and stamping the leaves as before, this time I added some Versamark and clear EP and heat embossed. It took a couple of goes as the paper towel is very absorbent. The definition on the leaves was lost in the embossing process, so I scored in the veins carefully, with a craft knife.

On a panel of white card I stamped the large sentiment from Festive Sentiments in black and added the embossed leaves and berries. A doodled border using a black fine liner completes this element. 

When I'd finished the panel and placed it on the plain white card, it looked a bit uninteresting, so I stamped a couple of the Background Blocks Wonky Stripes in black on another piece of card, then added that to my base card before the top panel.

Well I hope I've given you some ideas to kick start your Christmas makes, so for the moment, thanks for stopping by.

Stay safe and keep crafting!!