Magical Meadow ~ Beautiful Winter Card with a Stampin Up stamp set

Are we still crafting winter cards?

Is winter where it's at? 

Have we moved on to spring creations in our paper crafting? 

What stage are you at?

Are you still crafting up snowmen and winter themed cards in your craft room?

That was a lot of questions, I know. 

I'm curious as to what everyone else is working on. We are at that time of year - 
Christmas is over, we have passed the hype of New Year, the stores are filled 

with Valentine's and Easter Baskets!!

Here in Eastern Ontario we are still looking at bare ground as though it were early November and that doesn't happen often. Usually this time of year we would be 

wading through at least a foot of snow and would probably be looking at a chilly

 -20 for a daily temperature. 

Currently we have been hovering around 0, and just below zero in the evenings.

So this weather has me in a crafting blunder. When I look out the windows from my studio it almost appears that the trees are trying to bud which makes me think spring, and should I be making something with tulips.

 I know there is still going to be a lot of snow powering my way in the next few months. Many people love the snowy season, so I'm thinking I should still be creating winter/snow themed cards. Definitely some snowmen. since at the current moment on a card front would be the only place I would be seeing a snowman. 

Well... with frosty thoughts I decided to pull out a Stampin' Up set I had bought back in early fall but had only used once. Using it once just wasn't good value for my buck.

I had purchased "Magical Meadow" and a beautiful paper that coordinated with the stamp set. With good intentions, I sat down to create with it, however not much was coming to mind.

 I glanced out the window while processing the slump I seemed to be in and noticed the frosty looking cedars. They almost had a glitter to them.  This led to stamping a few of the greenery pieces from the stamp set.  "Hmm"... the berries and leaves seem to be all the same color.  So I stamped what what resembled some cedar brush in Garden Green Ink as well as an Orchid Oasis Ink ( 2 images ). I fussy cut the berries from Orchid Oasis one and glued them overtop of the berries on the Garden Green image.  I know!! - that sound really tedious and for the most part it was. I repeated the same process for the larger berries and covered the Orchid Oasis leaves with Garden Green ones. A lot of cutting and pasting. 

I realize I could have avoided this whole process by using water based markers to color directly to the stamp in the desired colors. However, I have a very poor selection of water based markers and I was already invested in the previously stamped images at this point.

After my whole cutting and pasting session I arranged the images into a cluster at the side of a  3 inch circle cut from white cardstock. Before gluing them down I chose the sentiment that would fit best from the Magical Meadow stamp set and stamped it in basic grey ink on the right side of the circle. Then I glued down the arrangement of winter greens. 

"The Colder Weather Brings Us Together"

(love, love, love this font)

Adding foam tape to the back of the circle before attaching it to a 4 1/4 x 11 card base, scored at 5 1/2.  I added some glitter to the berries with a glitter pen, as well as a splash of splatter to the card front. The splatter was a simple silver metallic water color paint with a few drops of water.  Lastly, I added a few silver dots and a tiny piece of metallic mesh ribbon to the gathering of the greenery. 

I absolutely loved the finished card!

It's so sparkly and beautiful! 

Which kind of made all of that cutting and pasting worth the effort.  

Just a note about the stamp set:  You may have already purchased this stamp set, and if so then this is a great card idea for you.  Otherwise I heard through the rumor mill that the catalog this stamp set came from actually ends tonight. So if you really like the stamp set you could maybe rustle yourself up a Stampin' Up demonstrator or order from the Stampin' Up website before midnight. Maybe even find it down the road in the clearance bin. 

If you do decide to create this card I highly recommend using the method of coloring the stamp images with a water based marker. 

However, all that was really used to create this pretty card were some greens and some berries and maybe you already have something like that hanging around in your arsenal of supplies. So you could totally recreate this card idea using other greenery images. I just simply had the product sitting there - which means I have to use it or lose the money I invested in it. There are a whole lot of Stampin' Up sets coming up in a "Used Product Sale" in the very near future. So if that's something you are interested in let me know - otherwise they just go in my online store. 

Anywho... I hoped you enjoyed this card! 

Please let me know if you are still creating winter themed cards, I'd love to know!

What's happening next? - January is bringing a few changes including a lot more videos.

 

We are working on a crafting community - so I don't have to ask 20 questions at the beginning of a blog post...🤣  Just kidding... I want to be able to communicate with my crafty friends on a different level. 

Celebrations - is the next theme we are working on - so birthdays and celebrations! 

I'm still "kind of" holiday-ing it before getting back into the full swing of things... 

In the meantime, Happy Crafting!!