Penguins on Ice with Sara

Hi Bluebird Friends, Sara here!

Today it’s my turn over the Hello Bluebird Blog and I have a Christmas card to show you, featuring the recent released Penguins on Ice stamp set.

I wanted to create a really simple design, that could be used for mass production during the “Christmas Rush”.

I firstly took a piece of light pink cardstock and I stamped all of the penguins included in the Penguins on Ice stamp set. I wanted to create a sort of patterned paper, so I changed their “direction” and I mixed them. I then started coloring: since it isn’t a copic friendly cardstock, I had to be really careful not to smudge. And here’s the combos I used:

Penguins: N10 – N8 – N7 – N6 – N5
Hats and scarves: R59 – R46 – R35 – R43
Beaks: E44 – E43 – E42

I did the white parts of the penguins using a white posca pen from Faber Castell. I also filled some of the empty spaces with some red hearts and some white stamped snowflakes and when everything was done, I die cut it using the largest of the Nesting Deckle A2 die.

I then moved into the sentiment: I white heat embossed the MERRY script from the Big Christmas Greetings stamp and I die cut it with coordinating dies. I also did the same with the rest of the sentiment, which I stamped black on white paper and cut it. I planned to put them to the bottom right part of the card but when I tried, there was too much confusion from the background and I didn’t like the result. So, I thought how I could do and I realized that a strip of vellum could have softened the background and helped the sentiment to better show. That’s what I did, using a strip of vellum which I die cut using the same Nesing Die. Then I realized that one of the penguin (the one carrying the Christmas stockings was completely behind the vellum and I could have attached another one over the vellum. So I stamped it on some Neenah Solar White and colored using the same color combos.

To complete the card, I matted the panel using a slightly larger white cardstock. And here’s the finished result!