A sweet crafty friends has asked folks to make handmade holiday cards that she can distribute to seniors at a nursing home facility. I love crafting for good causes, so I knew I wanted to make some whimsical gender neutral cards that I could make several of without spending days on each card (my normal pace for card making — LOL).
I decided the cute Mama Elephant Arctic Penguins stamps would be easy to color and fussy cut and the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Pop Up Die would be perfect to create some fast but fun cards. Of course I could have skipped the coloring altogether (since the stamps were designed with a distressed sketchy look), but I decided to add some simple shading and then to half of the penguins I chose to draw (with a Copic Multiliner pen in 0.1 pt) in a little division between the heads and bellies so that I could do some fun orange-yellow-white ombre coloring. Both ways of coloring up these cuties were fun and easy to replicate. These are the Copic colors I used: 0, W0, W1, Y11, Y15 and YR16.
I decided to use some card bases that I had in my stash from a Michaels Hot Buy (80 cards and envelopes for $5), but flipped the colored side to the inside of the card to create an easy sky for the scene background. Then for the background ground, I used the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Die to cut out a snowy hill. I love how all the Lawn Fawn stitched hillside and border dies seem to work together so well. The pop up hills are also really easy to create (the video below shows how), and if you position this Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Die just-so, you can get four of them cut out of one 8.5″ x 11″ piece of card stock with just bits and pieces left over (from which I punched out loads of snowflakes).
Then to continue on my mission to make these simple mass-produceable cards, I got out a bunch of my old Martha Stewart Snowflake Punches: Himalayan, Aspen Punch Around the Page, and Alpine Snowflake (currently on sale at Joann’s for 40% off!). I used up various scraps of white card stock I had punching out loads of all these snowflakes and just topped them with Icicles and Silver Stickles for a wonderful shine and sparkle. For the front of the card, I also added some beautiful blue Recollections dimensional snowflake stickers I had left over from my holiday crafting last year.
To keep the sentiments religion-neutral, I used the Avery Elle Be Jolly stamp set on the outside of the card, and the Avery Elle “Oh What Fun” stamp set on the inside of the card. I stamped all the sentiments using Momento Luxe Tuxedo Black Ink and used clear embossing powder to give them a nice shiny and slightly dimensional finish.
The following is a video sharing the cards as well as a mini tutorial on how to use the Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Die:
These cards are being entered into the following challenges:
Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes Challenge
Simon Says Stamp Monday Shine Bright Like a Diamond Challenge
Just Keep On Creating Anything Goes Challenge
Through the Craft Room Door Anything Goes Challenge
613 Avenue Create Anything Goes Challenge
Craft Your Passion Anything Goes Challenge
Crafty Gals Corner Use a Sentiment Challenge
Creatalicious Anything Goes Challenge
Wonderful quick card that looks like it took tons of time. I have all those dies and love them. The lovely people at the nursing homes and assisted living will certainly enjoy them.
Thank so much Cely! Yes, EXACTLY! I wanted each senior who received one of these cards to feel special and like someone really went all out to make these cards, but I wanted it to be reproduceable enough to make more than one (especially since I’m such a slow crafter normally). I hope the nursing home residents enjoy them. 🙂
What a cute card! Thank you so much for entering our ATG challenge at Through The Craft Room Door this week. Looking forward to see you again next challenge.
Regards,
TTCRD DT
Scrapbookingmamaw {My Blog}
Through The Craft Room Door
ttcrd.blogspot.com
Thanks so much Jeanie! TFStopping by and spreading crafty love! xoxo, Kristina
Oh,these are SO cute Kristina!! Wish I could make them,but I don’t have the penguins or the stitched dies (or the stamps,lol) Great fun watching you making them though,thanks!
Awww thanks so much Ann! I only recently got the penguins but I think this could also work with any winter critter stamps (the Mama Elephant Pandas come to mind–LOL). As for the stitched hillsides, you can totally hand cut the background and simplify the pop up to one layer (there are lots of YT videos out there to hand cut pop up cards). 😀 Hope you give it a try when you have a little time. TFW and for taking the time to leave such a sweet comment! Big hugs, Kristina
I love penguins so this card really appeals to me and I adore that you’ve created a pop up…such a clever idea! Thank you so much for sharing and playing along with us over on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog… 🙂
Awww thanks so much Emma! I love penguins and pop up cards too! I hope the seniors who receive these cards feel special.
Cute card – love the penguins. Thanks for joining us at Craft Your Passion Challenges! – Patti (CYP DT)
Thank you so much Patti! I love the penguins too! 😀
Beautiful pop-up cards love the cute penguins having a lot of fun-and great colouring —-Thank you for joining us at 613 Avenue Create
Carol DT x
Awww thanks so much Carol! I hope the seniors who receive these cards enjoy the cards too. They were made with lots of crafty love!
These penguin cards are so much FUN!! love them. Thanks so much for joining us this time at the Craft Your Passion Challenge, Elizabeth (DT)
Thank you so much Elizabeth! I hope the seniors who receive these pop up cards think they are fun too! tfstopping by! Hugs, Kristina
Oh my gosh I LOVE these cards!! Those penguins are too cute! It would be great if you could join us for our first ever challenge and DT call at Crafty Purple Frog (http://craftypurplefrog.blogspot.co.uk/)
Thank you for the inspiration.
Hugs
Amy x
Awww thanks so much! I will definitely go check out your new challenge blog and shop. Thanks for the heads up! Big hugs, Kristina
Adorable!! I love penguins!! Thanks for sharing with us at Crafty Gals Corner.
Amy-DT
Thanks so much Amy! I had fun making up all these cards for the nursing home residents. 🙂
Fabulous cards!
Thank you soo much for taking part in our “anything goes with optional anything but a card” challenge over at Creatalicious & good luck in the draw.
Hope to see you again in our new challenge as well…
Hugs,
Melanie
(DT-Coordinator Creatalicious Challenges)
(DT Crafty Friends)
(DT The Sketchy Challenges)
Thanks so much Melanie! These were really fun to make. 🙂
A great card – thanks for joining us at Lil Patch of Crafty Friends and we hope to see you back again for our next challenge.
Helen x