Special Guest - Terri Burson

Hello crafty friends.  I'm so happy to be guest designing today for Whimsy Stamps!  Any time you can extend the life of your stamps and use them beyond what they were intended for, I'm all about that.  So today, I'm sharing how I've used the Gingerbread Greetings and Tweetie Pie clear stamps beyond Christmas, and on into winter, as Thank You cards for all those gifts you received!

I wanted to make a set of cards that coordinate, so I chose 3 basic colors and kept a similar design for each card.  When stamping multiple images, it just takes a little more extra time to color those additional images.  Setting things up assembly style is also very helpful.

I'm using watercolor pencils on all of my images today.  For my "pink" card, you can see the swatch that I created below to choose my colors.  I ended up choosing #1 for the darker shading and #3 to blend out my colors.  All of my images were stamped on Canson mixed media paper using my Misti and hybrid ink in a leather color, which affords a softer look and better blending for a no-line coloring effect on my Gingerbread houses.

I also used a fun technique for coloring: grabbing color directly from the watercolor pencil with a waterbrush.  You'll want to have paper towels handy to blot for a light effect.  If you'd like to see a quick two-minute video that I shared on my Facebook account showing the process, click here.  I hope you'll follow me while you're there, too!

One of my favorite tools for embellishing is a white gel pen.  I use it on almost all of my projects in one form or another.  As you can see in the photo below, I did a lot of embellishing on my images.  Not only to accent the design, but to create a little snow effect as well.

Let me also mention that I used A2 size Neenah scored cards and trimmed my Whimsy Stamps 

Cozy Winter paper pack to cover the entire front for my scenes.  I also created 3 separate stitched die pieces for each card to create a layered, snowy hillside.  Whimsy Stamps has a lovely set for you to add to your collection, the Stitched Border Die Trio. My lighting is very bright, but you can see the layering best on my "pink" card if you zoom in.  Some of my layers are popped up with adhesive foam circles, as are the sentiments, some of the houses and some of the trees.  

A touch of stenciling was also added on two of my cards for a cobblestone effect in front of the doorway on the lower houses.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I also used the Tweetie Pie clear stamp set.  The thank you sentiment was the perfect complement to complete my themed cards.

Thanks again to Whimsy Stamps for allowing me to share with you today.  If you have any questions that I haven't answered, please leave them in the comment section and I will do my best to respond.  

Stay crafty my friends!  Terri

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