Happy, Merry, Joyful Penguins

Oh, hi!  How's the weather where you are?  It's been switching between mild summer weather and fall weather, with a few cold fronts thrown in, here in Texas.  But even those warmer days haven't stopped me from making Christmas cards.

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For this card, not only did I use the Sweet Holiday Penguins stamps by My Favorite Things, but I also used the Blueprints 27 Die-namics.  Talk about making a layout super easy!  Where has this been all my life??

Oh, and there's a video, too:

I started out by running the window frame die and a piece of Neenah Solar White card stock through my Gemini Junior die cut machine.  I needed it cut out in white so I could stamp on the white squares and rectangle.

To get those penguins in just the right spot, I put a bit of adhesive of the back of the squares so they would stay put in my stamp positioner.  Then, I placed the penguins where I wanted them and stamped them using Memento Tuxedo Black ink.

After they were stamped, I colored them up with Copics.

Here are the colors I used:

Penguins - W4, W3
Beaks - YR15, YR18
Cheeks - R00
Santa Hats - R59, R29, R24, BG10
Candy Cane - R29
Wreath - G05, R29
Scarf - G05, R29

Now then. . . on to the rectangle.  There are a few (easy) steps involved here.  I used the Happy Christmas die twice.  I cut it once from red card stock (for the letters) and once from white card stock (to use the negative).

I then used the white piece with the negative of the word Christmas and lined it up with the rectangle part of the window frame die from the Blueprints dies and ran it through my machine.  Why?  Because I can't draw a straight line with a ruler and I knew there was no way I was going to get those letters lined up or spaced just right.

So, now that I had my solid white rectangle and the white rectangle with the negative of the word Christmas, I used removable tape to hold them together so I could adhere the red letters to the solid white rectangle.  After all the letters were glued down, I removed the negative and Viola!  All letters are straight and perfectly spaced.

Now it's time to stamp the "Happy, Merry, Joyful" above the die cut letters.  The only problem is that the stamp reads, "Happy, Merry, Joyful Christmas."

But there's a fix for that.  I placed the rectangle with the die cut letters in my stamp positioner.  I placed the stamp where I wanted it be and picked it up with the lid of the positioner.  Then, before inking up the stamp, I placed a small piece of painter's tape over the word Christmas on the stamp.

With the painter's tape in place, I inked it up as I normally would.  Before I closed the lid on my positioner though, I removed the painter's tape from the stamp.

Yes, I'm actually going to say it again . . . I removed the painter's tape from the stamp. Then I closed the lid and stamped the sentiment.

It's important to remember to remove the painter's tape before stamping because if you don't, you'll have a really nice blob of ink right where you don't want it.

Okay . . . after I got the (rest of the) sentiment stamped, it was time to put the card together.

I cut the big scalloped rectangle from red cardstock and then decided that I wanted a bit of contrast for the window frames, so I cut that from light blue card stock.

I adhered the blue window frame to the red card stock and then finished the "puzzle" by adhering the stamped squares and sentiment rectangle into the light blue frame.  I then adhered that whole panel to a white A2 notecard.

For a bit of bling, I added some Star Dust Stickles on the hats on the penguins and went over "Christmas" with my Wink of Stella glitter pen.  Ta-Da!  All done.

Thanks for visiting today!