Snowy Winter Cabin

I love to create winter scenes.  So many people comment that they find it hard to believe since I live in Florida that I have such a good grasp of snow. I lived in West Virginia and Maryland until I was in my late twenties so I have had lots of experience. I grew up on a three hundred acre West Virginia farm and our house sat in the middle of large fields bordered with forest.  We had large picture windows all around our house and beautiful views in every direction. I have wonderful memories of building snowmen with my sisters, and the four of us girls and our neighbor's five sons sledding down the steep hilly road by our house. My favorite memory, though is of the view looking out of our living room window when everything was covered with a gorgeous fresh blanket of snow and the icy tree branches sparkling in the morning sun. I know that at 57 years of age I have selective memory of the fun and wonderful things and have blocked out the terrible driving conditions, walking to school when there was too much snow for the bus to run (snow days were not given freely in the 1950's) or falling down the icy front porch steps.  Ouch!!!  I remember now ….that really hurt.

I made this card yesterday for the Splitcoaststampers Sketch Challenge. This snow scene was created using Liquid Applique so I thought I would take the opportunity to give a short tutorial on how easy it is to create snow with Liquid Applique.  Keep an eye out on the Rubbernecker Stamp Company Blog as I will  soon be publishing a very detailed tutorial on creating a snow scene using white craft reinker, white embossing powder and the technique of masking to create wonderful winter scenes.

 I stamp and color my image. You can use any coloring method you prefer but I love watercoloring with reinkers and a brush. For the purpose of this tutorial I quickly sponged on a dark blue sky so there would be good contrast between the sky area and the snowy ground.

I squeezed a fairly thick layer of Liquid Applique all along the ground line area that I wanted to cover. Notice the blobs.  If you were to heat this just like it is you would get huge blobby bubbles and not a nice consistent layer of snow.

I used a Q-Tip to daub all the Liquid Applique around the ground area.  I added more along the bottom to fill in totally and then daubed more with the Q-Tip. The dark ground line areas may not have been covered well enough but I won't know until I heat it.  Sometimes it is good coverage and sometimes not.  Remember….nothing is ever perfect. I then heat with my gun.

The ground lines can be seen slightly through the Liquid Applique so I lightly add a little more along the lines, daub it with the Q-Tip to spread and then heat again.

The light addition of Liquid Applique just gives the appearance of the lightly rounded hill side of the house.

Here is another hint for using Liquid Applique for snow.  I would have shown this as part of the tutorial but it just won't show in the picture.  Liquid Applique tends to be a little sticky after being heated and if you lay something over the card or put it in an envelope it tends to stick. When I am through heating the Liquid Applique and while it is still warm I sprinkle Iridescent Ice embossing Powder on it, lightly tap the back of the cardstock to remove excess powder and heat lightly again to set the powder.  It gives a gorgeous sparkle to the snow and also creates a coating on it and eliminates that tackiness. I used this technique on my project above but it sadly does not show in the photo.  It really does make your scene come alive.

Stamps:Rubbernecker Kittie Kits "Cause a Scene" The Moose is Loose.

Paper:  Kiwi Kiss, Watercolor, SU Designer Paper

Ink:  Brilliance Black, Brocade Blue, Kiwi Kiss, Caramel

Accessories:  Grosgrain, Liquid Applique, Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder, Brushes, Sponges