Hello everyone! Today we are celebrating World Cardmaking Day. Handmade cards can spread happiness and kindness around the world and are a great way of telling someone that you care. Simon Says Stamp is hosting a special World Cardmaking Day event today.
For this event, I am representing my second home, South Africa, since there were already quite a few designers from Europe, and since it was in South Africa that I first started making cards and began my whole papercrafting journey.
Since Christmas takes place in the middle of the summer in South Africa, I wanted to make a warm and inviting card, which would work for Christmas in any season. I thought a poinsettia was a good choice. I skipped the green leaves of the poinsettia, since I wanted to stick to just red and brown shades.
Before starting the tutorial, I thought I'd tell you the story about when I started making cards in 2002, which later also led to scrapbooking, mixed media, art journaling and everything else. It all started with cards. I had been doing arts and crafts my whole life, but hadn't made cards since I was a kid. As an exchange student in South Africa, I started to feel that I really missed crafting, having no supplies with me. I can remember the exact moment when I realised that cardmaking was the way to go. I was doing situps at the gym and looked up in the roof between sets, and suddenly it hit me that I was going to start making cards. I suppose I remember it in such detail since it was a pivotal moment in my life. I really cannot imagine being without my art-making.
That weekend, I went to the local arts and crafts market and bought all kinds of embellishments and supplies: felt, little wire animals, punched shapes, sequins, skeleton leaves etc. I still have some of them in my stash. In the mall, there was also a shop selling pretty papers, and they also had some stamps, and the rest, as they say, is history. I had found my true passion in life.
I don't really have photos of my first cards since it was before I had a digital camera. This was one of the earlier Christmas card, and that tree stamp was one of my first stamps. There's an overlay of vellum over the trees and I think I used a stencil to emboss the sentiment into a piece of copper. The multiple stamping technique, without reinking in between, is still a favourite of mine.
Now to the card, I used the Holiday Poinsettia die and die cut it from watercolor paper. Leave the paper in the die.
The die also embosses the paper and for that I used the Sizzix Emboss and Transfer set, with this sandwich: Multipurpose Platform Tab 1, Cutting Pad, die with the paper still inside, facing up, Silicon Rubber, and last Impressions Pad.
Here you see the resulting outline and the embossed petals/leaves. I die cut two sets of leaves.
I coloured my leaves with the red Scribble Stick, starting from the bottom where I wanted the strongest color and leaving about half of the leaf without pigment. Use water and a paint brush to turn it into watercolor. On this photo there are three leaves which have already gotten the water treatment.
I added darker red to some of the leaves and coloured the center dots yellow. It is easiest to do before removing them from the surrounding paper.
Bend the tip of the petals slightly with the tweezers from the same Tonic set.
Emboss the gorgeous Christmas Sweater Background stamp with white powder on watercolor paper.
Using the brown Scribble Stick, scribble over the lines in the stamped impression, making some darker and some very light, and leave some white in between.
Use water and a paint brush to dissolve the pigment, blending as you go. Here you can see how much color came from the Scribble Stick applied in the previous step. I rinsed off my brush after having done the darker lines, to try not to blend in too much brown in the areas I wanted lighter.
Dip the brown Scribble Stick in water and flick a paint brush against it to create splatters. Distress the edges of the panel and stitch it to the background card. For a blue toned version of this background, check out my Panda card.
I assembled the flower on the card, by first gluing down the outlines and then continuing with the leaves. Glue was only applied at the base of each leave, so that there would be dimension. It is like building a puzzle. When I was done with the first layer (one die cut flower), I tucked in additional leaves behind the front petals and in the center to make the flower fuller. If you want to make a more realistic poinsettia, colour the first layer of leaves green instead of red.
I used Distress Matte Medium to glue the flower, also for the center. I love how it dries basically completely invisible. If you spot it in the center of my flower, it is because the glue wasn't yet dry when I took my photos.
The sentiment was die cut from Tim Holtz gold kraft paper and I also die cut the Clipping Heart from the same paper and glued here and there.
The hearts were sanded slightly and I added a piece of lace trim.
Don't miss all the cardmaking inspiration on the Simon Says Stamp blog, and below you will find all the participants in this event, representing nineteen different countries and six continents.
Australia - Gayatri Murali
Belgium - Laura Sterckx
Canada - Sarah Moerman
China - Scarlet Liu
Colombia - Bibi Cameron
England - Jo Nevill
Germany - Maria Fischer
Greece - Vicky Papaioannou
Italy - Barbara Schiassi
Malta - Lorraine Aquilina
Poland - Marzena Ziuziakowska
Russia - Svetlana Pavlova
Scotland - Debby Hughes
South Africa - Anna-Karin Evaldsson (you are here)
South Korea - Marge Yoon
Spain - Amanda Korotkova
Switzerland - Isha Gupta
Ukraine - Svitlana Shayevich
USA - Barb Engler
I hope you will have the time to make a card today to celebrate World Cardmaking Day, and join in this joyful international event. And of course there is a chance to win too, if you link up a Christmas/holiday card, you have a chance to win one of ten $50 gift cards to Simon Says Stamp as well as one subscription to Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine.
Thank you so much for visiting here today!
Happy cardmaking!
Anna-Karin
Supplies:
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Terrific post, Anna! I admire the colors and techniques you used here, your card is really pretty. My first thought was South Africa? It was fun to read your explanation of location and to see one of your early creations.
ReplyDeleteYour cards are absolutely gorgeous !!
ReplyDeleteGorgeous!!!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful card! Thank you for sharing your technique
ReplyDeleteWOW Anna-Karin your card is amazing and thanks for the great tutorial. Loved reading about your card making beginnings. You were meant to craft, for sure!
ReplyDeleteThat sure is a different look for that background stamp. Nice card.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful rustic background... looks great behind the pretty poinsettia. Love the unique non-traditional look.
ReplyDeleteYay, I thought you'd represent South Africa seeing as you'd made a number of projects previously. So glad you did - and what a gorgeous project. I love the background and poinsettia - a perfect card celebrating Christmas in the heat of summer!
ReplyDeleteLovely card and I liked reading about how you got started in card making.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely AWESOME!
ReplyDelete