Art Impressions at Michaels

There are four new holiday Ai sets available right now in Michaels stores... and the Design Team are all sharing projects today.  I am featuring SC0799 or the "Ugly Sweater Gal" as I like to call her:

 I coloured her up with my Copic markers... and decided that she deserved a little shimmer, so I added my gold Wink of Stella pen to all of the jingle bells and the star.  I used some metallic gold thread to zigzag a little decoration on my card as well.  There are a bunch of cute holiday sentiments included in the set, and I chose "Don we now our Ugly Sweaters!" which I adhered with pop dots.

Happy stamping!

Copics used: Skin/hair: E11, E00, E000, E44, E43

Blues: B97, B95, B93, B91

Greens: G46, G43, G41, G21

Reds: E37, E35, E32, E30

Browns: E44, E43, E41, E40

Golds: Y26, Y23, E50

Sparkle & Cheer

 I really love this sweet snowman set from the newly released Ai Christmas clear sets - here are three cards made with Sparkle & Cheer (Sku #4935):

The snowmen in this set are just darling - and quick to colour!  You'll have a stack of Christmas cards ready to go in no time.

I used some festive plaid papers and added a little bit of lime green to make things pop.  I also used lime green thread in my sewing machine to zigzag on each card.

Happy stamping!

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Tag It!

The current challenge on the Art Impressions blog is "Tag It!"  We want to see your tags - Christmas or otherwise... I am sharing "otherwise" today :o)  The Ai DT is helping to launch the Ai clear Christmas & Thanksgiving sets today - and I am featuring Full of Thanks set (Sku #4939):

 I pulled out my favourite Perfectly Plaid Fall papers from Lawn Fawn... and coloured up three of the images from this cute set (oh, that turkey!!).  There are fabulous sentiments included as well, so I picked three:

 You'll want to see what the rest of the Design Team is sharing today on the blog, and you can get a peek at the newest Ai Christmas stamps - now available in the Art Impressions store.  You can link up your own tags while you're there.  Happy stamping!

Girlfriends Christmas Card

 Don't you just love it when a new Ai Girlfriends stamp comes out??  I do - and this is such a fun one for the holidays.  Here is GF Christmas Set (Sku #4938):

 I adore all things plaid, especially for Christmas - so I used this sweet Lawn Fawn paper as my starting point by pulling out the green & teal colours, then picked a few other warm tones to finish colouring the image with Copic markers.  I kept the layout fairly simple by just using a circle die for the image, matting it, then adding a popped up sentiment and a few enamel dots to jazz it up.  Happy stamping!
Copics used: E11, E00, E000, E34, E31, E53, E51, E50, R37, R35, R32, R30, BG18, BG15, BG11, YG05, YG03, YG01, YG00, Y26, Y23, C5, C3, C1, C00

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Holiday Watercolour Cards

 I have several different cards to share today using a variety of the Art Impressions Watercolor stamp sets.  I was so excited when the WC Fir Trees Set (Sku #4960) debuted in the summer, and was very keen to try using it for Christmas greenery. I really love the results! 

 I started out with my watercolour paper and Marvy markers, and used the No. 4 paintbrush that is available in the Ai store.  For the urn, I used WC Ornate Container Set (Sku #4890) and my Brownish Grey Marvy marker.  I intentionally didn't colour the top edge of the container, as I knew that I wanted the foliage to be spilling over the edge.  Using my Jungle Green Marvy marker, I inked up four of the branch stamps, stamping the lower branches first, and filling in upwards.  I left a space in the center, and inked up one of the branches from WC Branches Set (Sku #4964) with my English Red Marvy marker (these are Red Dogwood branches!!).  I then used the brush end of my Marvy marker to hand draw in the pinecones by using a dabbing motion in a pinecone shape.  I used the fine end of the marker to add some shadows to the twigs:

 I used just two stamps from the set to make my wreath, and you can either draw a faint circle with a pencil to use as a guide, or do what I did, and stamp a branch on the top, bottom and on each side - forming a square shape.  Then continue stamping in between, shaping it into a circle.  I occasionally double stamped without re-inking, which gives a bit of depth to the wreath, by having some lighter toned sprigs.  I didn't fill in every white area, as that left me with spots to add in berries that I drew in directly with my red marker.  I also hand drew the bow in before there were too many sprigs around it.  I use a very light touch with my damp paintbrush, as I like to see some of the definition of the pine needles.

I was so happy with how these turned out, that I've made multiples to send as my Christmas cards.

First Coffee, then Presents.

Love this saying!  This is a digi set from Verve, and I'm using it to play along with this week's Merry Monday inspiration photo, using the current Freshly Made Sketch:

Finally another card for my Christmas card stash!  Paper is Christmas Delivery by Carta Bella, dies are Your Next Stamp & Memory Box, Verve sentiment.

New Ai Popcards

The Art Impressions Design Team are helping to launch 6 new PopCard stamp/die sets today!  These are wonderful 3D cards that go from flat to a full pop-up scene on the inside when you open the card.  I am showing Kitten Vanity PopCard (Sku #4945):

 I made two cards, both with slight variations, so here is the outside of one, and the pop-up inside of another.

I cut an oval opening in the front of the card, so that you can see that there is something fun on the inside.  And here is what pops up:

 The PopCards include all the images & the sentiment that you see here, as well as all the dies to cut each image out.  The dies come with special slits that are cut into the stacking pieces that fit onto the PopCard template.  *The template die is sold separately.  Head on over to the Ai blog to see the other designs, and what the Design Team has come up with.  Our current challenge is "Third Dimension" - we want to see your 3D cards!