Today's Guest: Jessica Frost-Ballas from All the Sparkle

Good morning!  Jess here from All the Sparkle and I’m thrilled to be back guesting for Flora and Fauna today!  I originally had one card design in mind but the color palette led to a second card and a few scraps led to a third card…I always love when that happens! ;)

The bird card using Winter Aviary was the first card I created and it inspired the other two. 

To start I stamped the bird from Winter Aviary onto white cardstock and heat-embossed it with gold embossing powder.  Then I colored him with copic markers and added a little spectrum noir clear sparkle to his scarf.  I also stamped and colored the holly sprig and then cut them both out and set them aside while I worked on the rest of the card.  I had an idea for a distress ink palette and I really love how it turned out with very non-traditional holiday colors.  I masked off a section of watercolor paper and then blended black soot, seedless preserves, victorian velvet, and antique linen distress ink onto the paper.  The victorian velvet creates this gorgeous peachy shade when blended over antique linen!  I flicked it with water droplets and then also added a splatter of gold paint.  It was difficult to photograph the metallic embossing and gold shimmer but it’s a little more noticeable in the photo below!

Once the paper was dry I adhered it to a white card base and then stamped the sentiment from Winter Aviary with versamark and heat-embossed it with gold embossing powder.  I adhered the branch with a single layer of foam mounting tape and the bird with a double layer of foam mounting tape.  Finally I finished the card with a sprinkling of metallic gold sequins!

My next card uses the same palette with the Arctic Starry Night set!  I wanted to get the effect of a wintery landscape reflected on the water…and I think it kinda worked! ;) I started by masking off the bottom third of a piece of white cardstock.  Generally when I am looking for a really smooth blend I will start with a larger panel of cardstock so that I can trim off any messy ends after the blending is finished.  I blended the same four distress ink colors starting with antique linen followed by victorian velvet, seedless preserves, and just a touch of black soot.  I applied it fairly heavily to get really good coverage.  Then I moved the masking tape to expose the bottom third of the panel.  I blended the same distress inks in reverse order but with a much lighter hand to resemble a reflection.  I splattered it with metallic gold paint and let it dry completely.  Once it was dry I stamped the trees across the line with versamark and heat-embossed it with gold embossing powder.  Next I stamped the trees upside down as if in a reflection but stamped them off on scrap paper before bringing them to the paper so that there wasn’t as much versamark left on the stamp.  This made a much lighter embossing powder impression that helped with the idea of a reflection.  I trimmed the panel down to 4.25” by 5.5” and reserved the leftover trim for my last card.

Next I stamped the sentiment from Arctic Starry Night onto the bottom right corner of the panel, heat-embossed it with gold embossing powder and then adhered the panel to a white card base.  Finally I stamped the bear and iceberg and heat-embossed them with gold embossing powder.  I added a little copic shading, cut them out, and then added spectrum noir clear sparkle to the scarf and top of the iceberg.  Finally I adhered the iceberg to the card and added my bear with foam mounting tape.

My final card was created with a scrap from my second card.  I had a leftover piece of background and didn’t want it to go to waste.  I matted it to white cardstock and then adhered it to a panel of dusky rose cardstock to match the blended panel.  I stamped the sentiment from Winter Aviary and heat-embossed it with gold embossing powder.  Super simple but a great way to recycle scraps!

Anyway, I apologize for the long post but I hope this inspires you to try a non-traditional holiday palette and gives you some ideas for using up your scraps!