Cozy Christmas

Hello friends. The weather outside is frightful here today, which is perfect to get cozy inside and start sharing my Christmas makes. I made quite a few cards with the new Christmas stamps that Tim Holtz released a few months ago. You can see the launch replay and all the inspiration makes on Tim’s blog.

I was very taken with the Cozy Christmas CMS444 stamp set and couldn’t stop making with it. It really tapped into my love of coloring. I stamped onto distress watercolor cardstock with distress archival ink and used distress re-inkers and a water brush to watercolor. Each of the cards is mounted with the following layers: idea-ology kraft stock + idea-ology metallic kraft stock + distress kraft heavystock.

If you look closely you will see there is text underneath the stars and the paper looks wrinkled. I stamped onto the background and then regretted it as it was way too bold and overpowering. So I went about fixing it! I added a piece of torn plain collage paper over the stamped text with collage medium.

Once dry I covered with a white gesso wash and then dried and stenciled distress crackle texture paste through the falling stars stencil. Finally, I added vintage collage medium and once dry, rubbed walnut stain distress crayon into the cracks.

This card was also not as planned but the happy accident worked…

The brown mark was the happy accident. I had turned the card over to mount it onto the card and there was a a little wet distress ink on my media mat. I dried it with a heat tool and liked the look so went with it. The one time I tried to make a “clean” card though hey! The universe was trying to tell me something!

By just adding a little brown distress ink you can grunge the same card right up!

These stamps are so wonderful to watercolor. I used distress reinkers and dried with a heat tool and then picked up some frayed burlap distress spray drips from the non stick mat portion of my glass media mat.

For this card I used both the stamps and a little masking magic.

I stamped onto a piece of copy paper and fussy cut. It takes a minute but I enjoy fussy cutting, it relaxes me. The reason I use copy paper is that it’s thin and so you don’t get that ridge when you mask and stamp over the top.

I flicked with a little white gesso.

Something else I love about the cozy christmas stamps is how well they work in parts and pieces.

I turned the stamp upside down and stamped a portion at the top of a #8 heavystock tag.

I stamped one of the sentiments from the set in hickory smoke distress archival ink. I love the sentiments in this set and plan to use them for my December Daily this year.

I LOVE this snowman with a pot for a hat. I’ll be back tomorrow with another make featuring that cute snowman. Change of plans… that cute snowman will be back later this week.

Thanks for stopping by.

Zoe

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