Tuesday with Tara {take 210}

Happy Tuesday! I’ve been inspired by our Facebook Challenge to create ‘Christmas in July’ cards and finally sat down to make a few over the weekend… this cute little winter otter by Lawn Fawn was a fun one to pair with a 3D snowflake embossing folder by Sizzix and some bling, including these fun jingle brads by Tim Holtz.

I started with stamping & coloring the otter with watercolor pencils & embossing the sentiment with white embossing powder on some pink cardstock. I have a stock pile of white pearly cardstock, so I embossed it with an embossing folder and added a ‘splash’ of color with Color Burst powder, which I misted with water and added a few splotches with a wet paintbrush, then I added the jingle brads (I like to cut slots for the prongs with an craft knife first so I don’t tear the paper) and attached it to a white card, cut down from Lawn Fawn’s White Cardstock.

It’s really a simple card, I added assorted jewels, enamel dots, Nuvo Glitter & Stickles to add texture, color & sparkle 🙂 The snowflake was pre-cut, but I added the pink tickles to the edges of it and to the otter’s scarf once everything was assembled. There’s lots of different shimmery elements, which is so fun for Christmas cards!

There was actually quite a bit of experimenting with this card and I made 3 variations… I tried several different mediums for my ‘splash’ of water behind the little otter, here’s a visual of the three together. On the right was my first attempt, alcohol inks with a grey otter and silver jingle brads. The paper, though it is coated, is more absorbant than I expected and didn’t give me the look I expected from the alcohol ink, though it still is pretty you can see spots where the ink soaked through. The card I shared above was my second experiment and on the left in the photo below you see a card with Distress Oxide Ink applied directly and smooshed for a more watery look. I’d used up some of my pink embellishments by the time I got to the third card (time to go shopping I guess!) so kept it very simple, even skipping the jingle brads, just using some bling & Stickles. I don’t do a lot of ‘mass production’ when I’m card making, so it’s hard for me to not change something on each of them 🙂

I hope you like my little Christmas in July cards- I’ve got another in process I’ll share with you next week, before July is over! I’d love to see what you create over in our Facebook Challenge Group, there’s a lot of inspiration there to get you going! Remember to share your project & add #SNSChristmasInJuly when you share on social media, there’s a $50 gc up for grabs!

Inky hugs,

Tara