Polar Mimi

Hi all.  Well another month has whizzed by and I am only just in time to get my card in for this month's Rudolph Days Challenge.  It is run by the lovely Mo over at Scraps of Life by Scrappymo and is open from the 25th to the end of each month.    I have been rather pushed for time so this was a bit hurried and flurried as I didn't want to miss it and I used a stamp from Penny Black called Polar Mimi.  I was lucky enough to win quite a lot of wooden stamps over at the Penny Black and More Challenge last month and this is the first card I have made with this particular one.

I started by die cutting a circle using a NBUS set of stitched dies from The Works and a snippet of white card.  I then stamped the image using Versafine Smokey Gray ink and added WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder and heat set it.  I coloured using my Lyra Brush Markers by scribbling on to my glass mat and picking up the ink with a waterbrush.  The only other colour I added was for Mimi's little red cheeks and I used a red pencil because I couldn't get the right colour blend with the inks.  I finished the topper by cutting a slightly larger stitched circle using a snippet of dark blue card to back it.

Next I cut a stitched square from another snippet of white card using another set of NBUS dies from The Works, and the largest die fits well on a 6" square base card.  I found my Falling Snow stencil and ran this through my Grand Calibur.  It doesn't show up very well and I think maybe I need to shim it a bit as the very small dots at the bottom are not easily visible, although in real life it is better than it appears in the photo.  I finished this layer by adding the sentiment using Versafine Majestic Blue ink and then added the WOW Clear Gloss EP before heat setting it.

I layered this square on to anothe snippet of dark blue card before adhering this to the white base card and then I layered up the topper.  I thought perhaps it looked a bit bare so I added a Sue Wilson Holly Branch die cut from another snippet of white card, and cut it into two pieces to fit easier round the top of the circle.  I added the berries using Berry Red Cosmic Shimmer PVA by making dots on my glass mat, leaving it over night to set, and then added them using some Cosmic Shimmer glue.  I tried putting them straight on but this particular holly branch has holes where the berries are meant to go and a lot of the glue gel just fell through and made an awful mess.  I tried to gradually build it up as it began to dry but I just smeared the stuff everywhere and had to start again, so adding them when dry works better but not sure they look as effective as straight out of the bottle.

I realised I hadn't done anything with the bit of falling snow on the stamped image, so got the Cosmic Shimmer White PVA out and used a trick to apply it which I found over at Jennifer McGuire's blog.  You put a blob on the mat and using a very small ball tool you coat it with the PVA and dot it on where you want it.  I also added some on the ground around the figures.   

Thank you for looking at my blog today and I'll see you again soon.

I am also entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Crafty Workshop  - Week 291/2 where we use our snippets of card, paper etc
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes.