Cabin by the lake

I’ve been trying to make some smaller panels and one layer cards over the last few days as I still need quite a few cards so how exactly did this happen!? Not smaller and not quicker but definitely satisfying. I was thinking about some of the scenic cards released by Penny Black this year and wanted to combine them into new scenes. I made the left side of ‘quietude’ + ‘cosy cabin’ + 1/3 ‘tannenbaum trio’ = a cabin by a frozen lake.

I worked on hot pressed watercolour paper with masking fluid splattered on it and began by stamping the small trees and horizon from the quietude stamp in iced spruce, forest moss and chipped sapphire. I blended over the trees with a paint brush but came back to them later to do more. I stamped the cozy cabin stamp next, forest moss and chipped sapphire on the trees, hickory smoke and black soot on the cabin. I remembered to colour inside the windows with a mustard seed marker before I got carried away with blending this time so it looks cozy inside. To add more trees behind the house I made a cabin post-it mask then stamped one of the tannenbaum trio stamps twice on the right hand side of the cabin.

Before adding the sky I made sure everything was dry then positioned a frisket film circle mask over the trees. I used speckled egg distress stain to paint the sky initially then when I had covered it all dropped in some chipped sapphire. Green ink did bleed out of the stamped trees but I kept a paper towel on hand to dab it dry before it could move too far.

The lake area is mainly iced spruce and stormy sky to keep it paler and frozen looking but I added chipped sapphire and forest moss at the bottom where the lake is in shadow behind the snowbank. The snowbank looked too large and stark in the left hand corner so I stamped just the tips of the branches from the single tree in the cozy cabin set to look like a bit of foreground foliage. ( hot tip for my Ottawa people, all three sets featured on this card are listed in the Crop A While online store, just saying…)

Quick update on Dressember: my card making friends keep pushing the fundraising total higher and I am so very appreciative. As I write this it has reached $1190.25. Thank you so much. Here is a photo from day 12 as I decorate gingerbread. Decorating the gingerbread is my favourite part of the process or maybe equal first place with eating it. This first batch unfortunately spread while baking to such an extent that the tree and mitten shapes were unrecognizable so the decorating was the only clue to what they were meant to be!

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Tannenbaum Scene – video

Last week I posted a card and video made with stamps from the Penny Black tannenbaum trio stamp set. I filled the scene with trees on the previous project making more of a forest. Today’s card features a different colour scheme and a painted sky.

As often is the case for my winter scenes I started with a panel of hot pressed watercolour paper splattered with masking fluid. I painted the sky first and stamped the trees last but the video gives you all the details so here it is.

We had a decent fall of snow yesterday so it’s looking a bit more like the video around here now. What’s it like where you are?

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Tannenbaum Forest – video

Funny story about this card, I realised last night that, although I had written in it, addressed it and even added the stamp to the envelope, I hadn’t taken the photos to go with today’s video tutorial. I pulled it out of the envelope, took some photos, did a little editing magic so you couldn’t see my handwriting on the inside then popped it back in the envelope. It’s mailed now, on its way to Australia.

This is one of two videos I’ve made featuring the tannebaum trio set from Penny Black. I’ll post the other one soon. I did generational stamping in a few colours to get the background trees to appear to be in the distance. It’s a fairly speedy technique which you could mass produce once you got into the swing of things.

As I’ve said before ‘you can never have too many tree stamps’ and the three in this set are no exception. You have already seen me pop them in a few cards on their own to add a foreground tree to a snowy scene or to be a single focal point on one of the mini cards I posted yesterday.

Thank you again for your interest in and support of the Dressember campaign. A couple of close friends I have made through card making helped move my fundraising total along yesterday. Thank you so much!

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Mini Snowscapes

I found myself needing a few more Christmas cards this week so I spent a pleasant couple of hours creating mini snowscapes with a handful of stamps. I taped a piece of hot pressed watercolour paper that was already splattered with masking fluid in quarters and kind of worked on the four panels at the same time. I used some of the techniques featured in my new WINTER WONDER online class but on a smaller scale.

The snowscape above features just a fraction of the PB quietude stamp stamped over a painted ink sky. I painted deep snowbank shadows in front of the small trees and then added a bigger tree from PB nature’s friends set in the foreground.

For the mini snowscape above and below I cut circle masks from painter’s tape and positioned them in the top right corners of my quarters before painting inky blue, purple and grey skies. The mini snowscape above features a tree of PB tannenbaum trio set and the one below is from nature’s friends.

Again on the panel below I painted the sky first and stamped the tree over the top. I’ve listed all the inks I used in the supply list below.

Once all the panels were dry I removed the tape and masking fluid, trimmed them all neatly and popped them up on a couple of pieces of cardstock to create a little distance and shadow from the luxe white card bases. I pulled out an old favourite sentiment set, holiday snippets for greetings in the perfect size.

Thank you for your encouragement yesterday as I announced my involvement in this year’s Dressember campaign to raise funds for ending slavery and human trafficking across the world. If you would like to learn more about the campaign or the International Justice Mission please click the links provided to find out what it is all about. As a Dressember Canada advocate the money I raise will be used by IJM in their work around the world investigating trafficking crimes, fighting legal battles against offenders and creating safe places for the recovery of survivors. Click here to donate

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Winter Quietude

When I posted a card stamped with the PB ‘quietude’ stamp recently I mentioned I would be making a more wintery looking version. Today I have two different colour schemes featuring snow and an extra tree from the tannenbaum trio set.

In this snowscape inspired by my friend Liz’s love for all things purple, I used speckled egg, dusty concord and black soot distress inks to paint a sky, a lake and snowbank shadows. I stamped the top of the scene first in speckled egg so I would know where to paint the sky then used a paintbrush and smooshed ink to fill the area above the horizon. I dried that then painted the lake area with speckled egg and dusty concord before stamping the trees in dusty concord and black soot inks.

For the colour scheme below I again used speckled egg but with pine needles and chipped sapphire distress inks.

The falling snow on both cards is a result of splattered masking fluid on hot pressed watercolour paper. I splattered it ahead of time and did all the stamping and painting before rubbing it off to reveal all the white dots.

If you have been reading this blog for a while you will know I have participated in the Dressember campaign in the past to raise awareness and funds to fight human trafficking. I’ve signed up again and will be wearing a dress every day in December while I share information about the work being done around the world to end modern day slavery. To support this cause please visit my fundraising campaign page https://dressemberijm-2020.funraise.org/fundraiser/heather-telford where you can donate. I will be posting the daily dresses on my instagram account with occasional updates here on the blog. (Please note I have signed up with Dressember Canada this time so tax receipts will be sent to Canadian donors only.)

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