Holiday Home

I love mornings but especially weekend mornings.  My body clock doesn't know there is a set time to wake up on week days and that I can sleep in on weekends. It just thinks 5:00 a.m. is the time to get up seven days a week.  There is nothing better than starting the day with a good cup of really hot coffee and having the time to check out my favorite blogs to catch up on the latest tutorials, techniques and gorgeous project uploads.

I know it is no secret that I love winter scenes and this one looks like much like any other that I create. But….I used a totally new and different technique to me. I have never  painted a whole scene with craft reinkers.  And I have only used glossy paper a few times and just for the first time embossed and sponged on it this past week. I thought it would be fun to try and create a whole scene stamping images with craft ink on glossy paper and embossing with clear embossing powder to set the inks and then painting the images with craft ink as well. My purpose was to be able to create that gorgeous sky with classic ink being sponged on the glossy paper.

I started by stamping the trees from the Papertrey set Believe on both sides of the paper with Artichoke craft ink, embossing with clear ep and heating. I then masked both trees and stamped the Papertrey Board and Beams house with Creamy Caramel craft ink and embossed with clear ep. I'm going to stop repeating at each step that I embossed every time I stamped or painted a new layer as it will get boring for you but in actuality I embossed each layer of craft ink that I did with clear embossing powder to set it so that I could move on to the next step. It was labor intensive but really a fun process. I painted the tree berries with Real Red craft ink and the trees with Old Olive craft ink.  The house roof, windows and trim was painted with Close to Cocoa craft ink. I stamped the little wreaths in the windows and the evergreen roof trim with Artichoke craft ink. I sponged in the sky area with classic Not Quite Navy ink and loved the night sky it created. The blue smudged down on my house as I had not been smart enough to mask it but I liked the look.  I wiped lots of the ink off the house and it created the look of a country blue siding. I finished the scene by using touches of Liquid Applique' to the roof, trees and ground area and then embossed over them with Iridescent Ice ep for a sparkle and to put a crust over the rubbery Liquid Applique'.

Stamps:  Papertrey-Believe, Board and Beams, Home for the Holidays

Paper:  Old Olive, Glossy, Papertrey White

Ink:  Stampin' UP! Craft- Artichoke, Olive, Caramel, Close To Cocoa, Real Red, Classic Not Quite Navy

Accessories:  Clear and Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder, Liquid Applique', Brushes, Inkssential Blending Tool, Velvet Ribbon, Nestabilities, Mounting Tape