Christmas ornaments

Here's another Christmas card. I made several versions of this, using all four of the ornaments on the ornament cube (Sunshine Designs). I embossed it in gold twice, cut one out, and popped it up. The image is coloured with Tombow markers using the colour chart that came with the stamp set. It looks more blended in real life. Man, that scanner shows everything, kind of like a magnification mirror and fluorescent lights. You really don't want to see that level of detail do you! I really must get in the habit of photographing cards instead of scanning. It's that extra few steps that always deter me and I take the quick way out with the scanner.

Anyway, I had all these lovely images coloured up and I was stuck for a layout and I needed something quick. I thought, why not to go the Master! I've taken several classes from Krista Schneider, the illustrator behind Sunshine Designs stamps, and the creator of the watercolouring with Tombow technique. She is also a layout living legend in my books. I love her layouts, so I thought I would case one from a recent class (see below). When you take her class, you get a worksheet with directions for all the parts, so I just followed that, changing it up for colours and papers, etc. to suit my card. I stuck pretty close to her design, but I used a different cuttlebug folder (ornament) and inked the embossed image to highlight the texture since my image wasn't as detailed as hers, the card needed the extra oomph. I also didn't stamp the red panel, it's a gold polka dot on red handmade-style paper that I got for Christmas last year. (After aging it in my craft room for a year, I felt it was time to use it. My craft room is completely wood-panelled so it's even almost like I barrel-aged it too! But I digress...again....)

All stamps are Sunshine Designs (The Stamp Barn: ornament cube, holly & berry cube, dots cube), the paper is watercolour, vanilla, chocolate chip, kiwi kiss, and red and gold polka dot. The image is accented with stickles (xmas red, crystal, cinnamon), as is the bottom panel. Inks were encore gold, versacolor vanilla, memories artprint brown, and memento rich chocolate.

Krista's version (I watercoloured it in the class but she does all the other elements):