Country Home: Quick and Easy (and Beautiful) Holiday Cards

Hello my Crafty and Creative Friends! 

August has passed by so quickly...I can't believe that my month of sharing super-simple & super- quick cards with you is coming to an end!

Today's cards are a great way to finish up my month of quick-cards...because it doesn't get much easier and super simple than the cards that I'm sharing with you today.

I chose Blue Knight Rubber Stamps COUNTRY HOME stamp for today's cards.
The BK Design Team has dedicated this week to creating Holiday themed cards...and I knew that I wanted to go with a Winter-look for my Holiday card.

For the first card, I watercolored a neutral-toned background...and stamped the image onto the background piece when it dried completely.
You can watercolor a background like I did...OR...you can stamp over a subtly printed piece of card stock of your choice....
If you have printed card stock that looks like water coloring..that would be great and makes creating this card a real cinch!
The key is to keep the background simple.....light in color...and not very busy...

When my watercolored background was completely dry...I stamped the image with Ranger's Potting Soil Ink...
I added the buck and doe from Blue Knight's MOMMA BEAR and FRIENDS stamp set.
Net...I used Liquid Pixie Dust...moxed with some water...and painted on the Pixie Dust shimmer onto  key image areas...
The roof areas...tree branches...the dirt drive....shrubbery...and under the buck and doe's feet

Using Liquid Pixie Dust like this on a water colored piece will move some of the water colored background around a bit....in other words..the Pixie Dust and water mixture will lay down on the card stock like water coloring...
You can see that effect in the photos...with the watermarking wherever I used the Liquid Pixie Dust and water mixture.
The first photo doesn't show the shimmer very well...I'll post another photo below.

I chose a chocolate brown card stock for matting...
I matted the image piece... and positioned it on a white card. 

Next, I  stamped the sentiment piece...chosen from Blue Knight's COME LET US ADORE HIM stamp set.
I edged the sentiment piece with the Potting Soil Ink and positioned it with fun foam for added dimension.

Creating this card was a super easy and super speedy process...
If you need to create multiples of a card for the Holidays...THIS is a great card for making a big stack of cards in a short period of time.
 

Not a very flattering card photo...but I wanted to share a photo that showed the Liquid Pixie Dust...giving you an idea as to where I applied it.

My second card is similar...but different...
The first card was created by stamping the image on a card front sized piece of card stock that I watercolored.
This second card was created by stamping the image on a clean piece of card stock...and then painting (watercoloring) the image,

The image was stamped with black ink... and watercolored...adding some color highlights to the roof...the shrubs...sky...and driveway path.

I added the mini buck and doe to this card as well....
and I painted Liquid Pixie dust (mixed with water) onto the rooftops and ground for some snowy shimmer...

To complete this card....I chose to use 3 matting layers....chocolate brown...and a beautifully textured and whitewashed woodgrain card stock

Both of today's cards were fun to create...and qualify for being part of my month of "quick and easy" card making!

I've enjoyed sharing quick-easy-to-make cards with you throughout the month of August...
I hope that you've found some card making inspiration here at my blog...and enjoy creating some quick and easy (and beautiful) cards of your own!

Thanks for visiting today...
Wishing you a day filled with creative joy!
Michelle.

You'll find each of today's featured stamps and the Liquid Pixie Dust HERE, at the Blue Knight Rubber Stamps web store.

And... don't forget to join us HERE:

Fans of Blue Knight Rubber Stamps (Facebook group) is HERE

and the Blue Knight Rubber Stamps YouTube Channel is HERE
and

You'll find my personal YouTube channel, In The Studio with Michelle,  HERE

You can follow and subscribe to my blog, if you'd like,  on the upper right of this page!

Weekly Blue Knight Design Team Inspiration: Creating a Gift Set of 6 Cards with the Silhouette Stag Stamp

Hello, my Crafty and Creative Friends!

As promised, my August Design Team projects have all focused on sharing quick and easy card making projects with you.

Although today's project is a set of 6 cards...it qualifies as being quick..and easy....
And I'm excited to share each card with you today!

I have been wanting to create a gift set of cards for my brother and sister-in-law with this favorite Blue Knight Stamp....SILHOUETTE STAG..
They both love the outdoors...and my brother is an avid hunter and fisherman.
I knew that this image was one that they both would love.

I created a set of 6 cards...all with night skies...
3 with a moon...and three without

I used black matting for each image.

All of the image coloring was created with Blue Knight's Select PanPastel DAY and NIGHT Palette.
The colors in this palette collection are ideal for blending night skies.

I stamped 6 of the image using a stamp positioning tool.
After stamping all 6 images...I left the stamp in position...in the tool...and set it aside...because I would be using it again after adding coloring the skies.

When the coloring was complete...I returned each piece to the stamp positioning tool and restamped the image multiple times until the stag 's silhouette was a nice solid dense black image without spots or washed ut looking areas. This took about 4...5 re-stampings.

Next...I sealed the image with a light misting of NEXXUS Comb Thru Hairspray.

If you follow my blog...you already know about the Hairspray thing...

If you're new to my blog..I'll explain a bit:

Using hairspray was recommended to me by our local art shop.

(*Note...sealing with NEXXUS is not archival safe...If you want your colored piece to be archival safe you'll need to use an art-grade sealant that is archival safe....NEXXUS COMB THRU is the brand that I recommend. Using cheaper heavier hair sprays won't do the job as nicely. I encourage you to invest in NEXXUS Comb Thru (not their other version of hairspray...Comb Thru works best)

To create each of the 3 moons, I used a circle punch to punch out a circle and positioned it behind the stag.
I added the sky colors...blending as needed, to create the color and look that I wanted.
When the sky was complete...I removed the circle mask...and added some light shadowing, with PanPastels, to the moon
I used the PanPastel colorless blender to smooth out and blend each sky and moon

This moon has some light blue shading...

This version has some grey toned shading on the moon....

And the third moon was shaded with blue and purple...

The next 3 cards were created without the moon...
I used Blue Knight's Heidi Pettie, Cloud Stencil, to add a hint of cloud outlines to this night sky.
I blended the entire sky, on this card...and the next 2 cards, with the PanPastel Colorless blender.

For this night sky, I blended a few different blue tones and some violet

You can see the different colors used on this card...blues...violet and from the Sunrise/Sunset PanPastel palette...I added some Magenta

I promised you that throughout August I would share a month of cards that are easy to create .... aren't time-consuming...tedious or difficult to create.
THIS set of cards qualifies for all of the above!
Easy...quick...and beautiful results!
Plus you get to have lots of fun blending and creating colors with PanPastels!

I hope that the cards that I've shared here today have inspired you to create a gift set of super easy, super beautiful card set of your own!

Thanks for visiting today!
Wishing you a beautiful day filled with creative joy!
Michelle

You can find each of today's featured stamps and the PanPastels HERE, at the Blue Knight Rubber Stamps web store.

And... don't forget to join us HERE:

Fans of Blue Knight Rubber Stamps (Facebook group) is HERE

and the Blue Knight Rubber Stamps YouTube Channel is HERE
and

You'll find my YouTube channel, In The Studio with Michelle,  HERE

and you can subscribe to my blog on the upper right of this page!