June Christmas card: Over the river

We're getting into some hot, humid weather around here, so a wintry scene is a nice change of pace. (Remind me of that in January when I'm tired of below-zero temperatures and shoveling feet of snow.) So for my June Christmas cards I created a sweet little scene with a cozy mountain cabin.

Supplies:
Stamps: Over the River (Essentials by Ellen)
Paper: Crumb Cake, Early Esspreso card stock (Stampin' Up!); cold press watercolor paper (Strathmore)
Ink: VersaFine Clair Nocturne (Tsukineko); ZIG Clean Color Real Brush markers: 050, 091, 036, 065, 044, 024 (Kuretake)
Accessories: Over the River dies (Essentials by Ellen), Wood Frame Infinity Dies (Hero Arts), Bead Board embossing folder (Taylored Expressions), sparkling clear sequins (Pretty Pink Posh), Aquqpainter (Stampin' Up!), clear Wink of Stella glitter brush pen (Kuretake), Real Red satin ribbon (Stampin' Up!), Dimensionals (Stampin' Up!), Scor-Tape (Scor-Pal), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute Glitter), foam tape (3M)

First of, I have to say that the VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink is amazing. Normally when I stamp on watercolor paper, I use a stamp positioner because it's hard to get a good first impression on the textured paper. But I didn't want to use a stamp positioner for these cards because of the overlapped images, so I decided to give it a try with the blocks. And it worked perfectly! Dark, solid images, and they didn't smear. Awesome!

Now on to the card. I used the Over the River stamp set from Essentials by Ellen, which I just love. (This set has been on my wish list since last Christmas, and I finally grabbed it during a recent sale.) I used some scratch card stock to play around with where I wanted to stamp the different elements. Once I was happy with the layout, I stamped the images on the watercolor paper and colored them with ZIG Clean Color Real Brush markers. And although you can't see it in this photo, I used my Wink of Stella brush pen to add some sparkle where I made the shadows for the trees. I die cut the cabin and smoke and used Dimensionals to add those pieces in the scene.

To frame the panel, I used the Wood Frame Infinity Dies from Hero Arts. I actually die cut two frames for each card. I glued the two frames together, turning one of them 180 degrees, to make the frame a little thicker and sturdier. I used foam tape to attach the frame to the watercolor scene.

For the card base, I wanted to add a little texture. I embossed a 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" piece of Crumb Cake card stock with a Bead Board embossing folder. I wrapped a piece of ribbon around the embossed layer and taped it down in the back. Then I attached that piece to a Crumb Cake card base. (For the first version of the card, I tried just embossing the front of the card base. That worked OK, but I decided I liked the extra layer instead.) I adhered the focal panel to the middle of the card base and then added three clear sequins as a final touch.

I love the way these cards turned out, but they took a lot longer than I thought they would  because of all the stamping, coloring, die cutting and embossing. I think my July Christmas card might be something nice and simple!

Thanks for stopping by!