Hello everyone – I hope your weekend is going well. I’m back with another of my demos from yesterday’s Clarity Social TV shows using the quirky new Sam’s Christmas Tree stamps, this time with a little friend and a background using her new Christmas BOW-WOB papers too.

Let’s start with the background. I brayered ‘uncharted mariner’ and ‘peacock feathers’ Distress Oxides onto my 6×6 Gel Press Plate and then laid a piece of the BOW-WOB paper onto it, rubbing it very lightly. The white areas of the paper will pick up ink from the gel plate, with the black acting as a resist, leaving the imprint on the plate. I then took one of Clarity’s 7×7 squares of stencil card and popped one of the small 3.5″ squares into the centre of it, before flipping the gel press over on it’s mount and using it like a giant stamp on the card to transfer the print. I now had a background with a central white area with the second small piece for another card.

I cut the background down with the second largest nested square die (that’s the easiest way to get the exact piece you want, rather than trying to trim each side individually). I then turned to the smallest square embedder to emboss a frame into the central aperture.

Next was to add the images, starting with the little penguin from the Family of Penguins set (I’ve christened him ‘Percy’!) I masked him off (you get a set of pre-cut ones with the stamps) then added one of Sam’s trees on each side, all with black Archival ink.

I then simply coloured the images with my new Faber Castell polychromo pencils, using the ‘ultramarine’ and ‘coral’ from the Winter set and ‘cobalt green’ from Summer. I drew a ground line with a micron pen and shaded below that with the ‘cobalt green’. Having run round the edges of the topper with a black Sharpie, I popped it on a 7×7 card blank and finished with an appropriate sentiment from the I Am Essential – Christmas set.

So how cute is that? Obviously I think so, which is why I’m sharing it with the current challenge at Cardz4Galz – their theme is ‘cute Christmas’!