Kraft Christmas Card Using a Stencil

This week's challenge at Bah Humbug was to use a stencil on a Christmas project.  Now, I love the idea of stencils (and masks).  In fact, I've bought 3 or 4 of Tim Holtz's masks but I've never used a single one.  Each and every one is still in its packaging waiting for me to use them.  Shh, don't tell anyone, I like to pretend that ALL of my craft supplies were NECESSARY. 

When I looked at the stencils I own, none of them really said "Christmas" to me.  So, they are still in their packaging.  However, I REALLY wanted to play along with the Bah Humbug Challenge. 

So, I thought about it and decided that I couldn't justify buying more stencils or masks.  I decided the best idea was to make my own stencil.  I pulled out a piece of acetate (mine came from a package of overhead projector pages) and placed it in my Cricut.  I cut out three snow flakes of varying size and style from the Winter Lace cart.  On a side note, I kept trying to tell myself I didn't really need this cart but when it went to $12 recently I just couldn't pass it up and I'm so glad I have it.  I've used it at least a half dozen times in just a couple of weeks.

Here are the snowflakes after I used them as a stencil.

I have cleaned them off since and I plan to put them next to the stencils I've purchased.  I used my Tombow Repositionable tape to adhere the stencils to the card.  Then I spread white A La Mode pigment ink over the stencils.  On the card above, I used Versamark and A La Mode Sparkle Embossing Powder before I started the inking.  The card below I applied the pigment ink with the stencils and then the embossing powder. 

I think I like the first card better.  What do you think?

Snow Angel Layout

Today's project is a layout of the Wonderkid.  We have had some unusual weather here in the Southeast part of the US.  Normally we don't get any snow but we are already on our second snowstorm of the year.  The first came on Christmas day, giving us a wonderful white Christmas.  This one is less exciting, unless you are three. Yesterday was the beginning of the storm and by morning it had stopped snowing but left us with three or four inches of snow.  The Wonderkid HAD to go out and play in it.  These photos are from that first trip out. He is lying in the middle of the street making snow angels.  (Because of the storm I haven't been able to go out and get the pictures printed so I put "place holder" pictures in for now).

 I love this cut from Winter Frolic cartridge.  The filmstrip was made by importing an SVG into inkscape, cleaning it up, making some modifications and now we have a filmstrip.  I think this cut will be featured in some more layouts.

The lettering was done with Storybook cart and Teardrop.  It looked a little plain to me so I added some bling to the Teardrop cuts.  I love to layer the letters so I used shadow cuts and shadow blackout cuts on all of the lettering.

I tried to find a paper that I liked and would coordinated with the lettering, filmstrip and cut snow angel.  Nothing in my stash worked so I used a piece of white cardstock and cut snowflakes from the Winter Lace cart.  I then added some different shades of blue under all of the cuts and stamped snowflakes using Mary Engelbreit clear stamps found in the dollar bins at Micheals (this weekend).