Papertrey Ink's October 2016 Create Along With Us

It's the Create Along With Us Challenge over at Papertrey this week and without even seeing the full release, it was easy to pick the project and colors that inspired me the most. Betsy's project with the new What the Doodle: Snowflake (releasing on October 15th) is easily one of my favorite winter color combinations.  I started by doing some ink blending on a panel of watercolor paper using Amethyst Allure and Hawaiian Shores inks.  I started with Aqua Mist but decided I wanted a bit more color.  I spritzed the panel with shimmer mist and set it aside to dry while I went to work on my ornament.

In order to keep the ornament the same shade of purple as my background, I continued to ink blend on another piece of watercolor paper using Amethyst Allure with my Mini Round Ink Blending Tool. Once I had it colored and shimmer spritzed, I set that aside to dry for a bit while I went back to work on the first panel.

Using several of the snowflakes from the Fab Flakes Stamp Set, I stamped them on the background panel with Versamark and heat embossed them with WOW! Metallic Platinum Sparkle Embossing Powder.  Next I used the pine branch from Holiday Greens Borders and stamped it in Pine Feather Ink, then inked it up again and shifted a bit to the right, then stamped it again for really full pine branches. Quickly, while the ink was still damp, I sprinkled it with WOW! Neutral Ultra Shimmer Embossing Powder and heat set it.  You have to move quickly, but your stamped image will have a bit of the moisture from the ink allowing some of the embossing powder to stick to it while you heat set it.

Next I inked up the What The Doodle: Ornament in Versamark and heat embossed it in the same Platinum Sparkle Embossing Powder from WOW! The dies for this set have a solid (outline) image and the detailed cut.  Using the solid ornament die, I cut it out so that I could see exactly where to place it then laid it into the detailed die and cut it again.  I really messed up the first one I did, so I had to figure out how to do it better and this was my solution.  It worked great.

For my greeting, I stamped the "Merry & Bright" from Mama Elephant Jingle Greetings first in Versamark and without wiping that off, inked it up in Royal Velvet.  Again, I sprinkled WOW! Neutral Ultra Shimmer Embossing Powder on it and heat set it which gave me a nice bold greeting with a lot of shimmer and shine.  This is one of my favorite tricks for bold greetings on my cards.  Even though I stamped the snowflakes before I stamped the greeting, they appear to be in front of the greeting.  If I would have embossed with the Platinum Embossing Powder, the greeting would have been lost.

I die cut that panel with the Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die in the largest size and then attached my ornament using Silver DMC Metallic Thread and slivers of Thin 3D Foam Squares that had been cut in half to make them narrow so they would fit on the back side of the ornament. I secured the string on the back of that panel with a small piece of Washi Tape (you could use any kind of tape) and adhered the panel to a top folding A2 card base made from Royal Velvet Cardstock.  Royal Velvet is decidedly K-State Purple!

I think this will be one of my main Christmas Cards this year although I still have a lot of time to think about it.  I really like the design.  It is a lot of steps, but I think it was worth the effort.  You could make it easier by changing up a few of the elements for mass production like stamping all of the snowflakes at once using MISTI, stamping the ornament onto Amethyst Allure Cardstock and then die cutting it or die cutting all the ornaments out of Amethyst Allure Cardstock and then stamping it using the MISTI and a few more options. I enjoy the stamping process and the unique, one of a kind design so I'm really happy with how this turned out.  Even if you did all of those things to speed along the production, it is still a very unique and beautiful card.  I love all the shimmer and shine!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today and taking time to comment. I'll be back soon with another project and starting this weekend, I'll be designing over at "The Challenge" for Always Playing With Paper.  I hope you come by to check us out!