Harry Potter and friends

Short story: Smart phones have ruined my life…made it super-easy for me  to see stamp products being sent to my email, all of which seem to have a time-limited, off-the-chart cuteness, must-buy-now quality.

The Greeting Farm sent me a deal for the Secret Santa set (below).  I might have been able to resist if not for the fact that the whole top row of images looks like Harry Potter and friends.  Add to this, the fact, that the bottom row has little gift-givers in winter and non-winter attire, making it super-versatile, and I was sold!   

I stamped and cut the four top images on Neenah card stock and colored them with copic markers.  After cutting them out with my Brother Scan n’ Cut I edged each image with my Memento black marker to give them a finished quality.

Now to turn them into a card!  With so many images, I decided to make a tri-fold card by cutting card stock down to 5 1/2 x 12 3/4 and scoring the card at 4 1/4 and 8 1/2.  Using a Lawn Fawn tree die i cut two of the panels at a downward angle so that upon closing the card there is a layered effect of trees on a hillside.

To continue the line of trees without cutting into the paper of the third (far right) panel I replaced my top cutting plate with a foam matt so the image would emboss vs. cut.  Before I embossed the trees I laid down a layer of Post-It Labeling Tape.  The Post-It tape was thin enough that the tree die was able to cut through it.  This allowed me to pull off the top half of the tape behind the tree line while keeping tape on top of the trees in order to protect them while I used a blending technique with distress ink to create the sky.

The castle image and sentiment is from a Lawn Fawn stamp set called Critters Ever After.  I stamped both image and sentiment with Memento ink and then colored the castle with my copic markers.

To add depth to the card I added warm grey shadows under each image, to include the die cut/embossed tree line.  Lastly, I coated the shadows with stickles to add some shine.