Stamps of Life Critter Christmas

Hello!  I don't know about you, but I'm definitely ready for the weekend!  It has been a long week of homeschooling and I am looking forward to two days "off".

I wanted to share this one layer card that I created from a newly released set of stamps from The Stamps of Life called hats4critters.  This set is so cute and versatile!  I love how it comes with a variety of hats for all different occasions.

However, I used the Santa hat to make this particular card a Christmas card.  I started by first drawing a light pencil line on a smooth white piece of cardstock.  This was going to be my "snow" pile.  I then lined up my critter stamps in the order I wanted to place them on the card.  Since the owl was the smallest of the four, I wanted to put him in the front.  I then stamped his hat and masked it.  Following that, I stamped the owl so that he would "fit" into his hat once the masking paper was removed.  I then masked the owl and stamped the hat of the cat and the raccoon.  After masking these hats as well, I then stamped those two critters.  I did not have to initally create a mask for the cat but I did create one for the racoon before I stamped the cute little white dog.

Once I had my main image of the four animals wearing their hats, I then colored the background with Copic markers.  I used B04, B02, B01, B00, B000, and B0000 for my sky.  I got this color combination idea from Michelle over at The Card Grotto.  She had done a card with this beautiful blue background that just seemed to "pop".  Her coloring skills are much better than mine (she makes some seriously beautiful cards) but I was happy with the final result!  Once I finished coloring the sky, I placed the masking paper back over each animal (I now had to create one for the cat) and their hats so that I could splatter some white paint over the top of the sky without ruining or covering their images.

Once the sky was finished, I colored the snow with some light grey tones and a colorless blender.  I then added a layer of clear glitter using my Clear Stella Glitter Pen to give the snow some shimmer.  I then colored the hats and critters themselves.  I outlined the hats with a black gel pen in order to see them better against the background.

Lastly, I added a stitched scallop piece of red cardstock using the large frame from Mama Elephant's All Prettied Up Creative Cuts followed by a large stitched rectangle on white cardstock.

This stamp set also comes with matching dies but I ended up not using them for this card.

I will be sending this card off to the Addicted to Stamps and More "Anything Goes" Challenge.

Addicted to Stamps and More "Anything Goes" Challenge

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!  I love to hear from you!  Feel free to leave any comments or questions!

Rachel