Hello my crafty friends! In anticipation of the snow headed my way this week, I would like to present a winter Birthday card. This card features the adorable exclusive 2022 Diecember set Chilly & Freezy from Tim Holtz for Simon Says Stamp. This set is free with a $25.00 purchase of Tim Holtz products but only while supplies last. As soon as I saw this set online I knew I had to have them. The first card that came to mind was a birthday card for a friend and fellow December baby.
Blended Background
I began by creating an ink blended background. I don’t do much ink blending in my daily crafts, but I do have a nice collection of Distress inks. Grabbing my tin, I pulled out 3 colors that I thought would look good together. I began by inking Salvaged Patina, Broken China, and Prize Ribbon onto a piece of Strathmore Bristol Smooth watercolor paper. Sadly on the finished card you can’t see much of the Salvaged Patina color. To add some interest to the sky I sprayed a bit of water onto the piece with my Distress Sprayer.
Because there were a couple of rather large water blobs, I added another layer of ink blending over the top. The second time I added water to the piece I held the spray bottle about 12 inches above the project for a really light mist. Right away I dabbed up the moisture with a paper towel and loved the results! I thought about adding some splatter with Perfect Pearls to give the sky an extra sparkle. However, I was so pleased with this background I did not want to mess it up! I used my A2 Layers Dies from Waffle Flower to trim the panel to fit a card front.
The Land & Trees
The next part of the background were the snowy hills for Chilly & Freezy to stand on. Taking some regular 110lb. white card stock from Recollections, I tore a curved line to represent the hills. I ripped the piece of card toward me so it would have a little bit of texture to it. The piece in back looked fine against the background, however, the one in front got lost in all the white. To help that, I added a light layer of Weathered Wood Distress Ink to the ripped edge. I used my new Waffle Flower shader brush #2 to accomplish this.
While creating all of these items I thought about adding trees to the hills. I tried think if I had any tree dies or foliage dies in my stash that I could use. The snowmen in this set are rather small, just a little over 2 inches tall with the stocking cap on so I didn’t want anything too large. I finally remembered a tree die that I had purchased for my old Sizzix Sidekick machine years ago. It was the perfect size. Again, I grabbed some scrap green card stock and cut them out. They needed a little something so I added Rustic Wilderness Distress Ink to the diecuts with the Waffle Flower shader brush #1.
Chilly & Freezy
These adorable snowmen are so easy to put together! Again, I used scraps from my stash to make the hats, scarves and earmuffs. The only picture I took while making them was of the carrot noses. Both layers were cut from the same piece of scrap yellow/orange cardstock. To change the color of the base layer, I used a Abandoned Coral Distress Ink.
It wasn’t until I finished both snowmen that I realized I used the same green color for the accessories as I did for the trees. It looked OK, but I wanted to have more colors on the card. I grabbed some different scraps and created another set of accessorites for another snowmen. Here’s a close up of the one I didn’t use.
Putting it all together
When I started putting the card design together I sent a picture to my sister. Together we decided it needed a bit of sparkle, so out came my clear Wink of Stella pen. I thought the trees and the top of the snow banks needed a little bit of sparkle. Next time I may add a bit of highlight to the snowmen as well.
To complete the card I stamped the sentiment with GinaK’s Amalgam ink. I’ve had this sentiment stamp set in my stash forever and sadly I don’t remember who it came from. Before gluing everything down, I used some Distress Micro Glaze to set the background ink. Are you familiar with Micro glaze? After you use it on water reactive inks, they are no longer water reactive. I keep a mini ink blending foam in the jar and just add a bit of it to the background. After a moment or two, use a paper towel to buff away the excess.
After that I glued the background to the A2 sized card base. I was surprised and pleased that it fit perfectly. I then added the snowbanks and the trees with no extra dimension. Chilly & Freezy are both glued flat to the background, but there is a thin 3D foam square from Scrapbook Adhesives behind Freezy’s head. I didn’t add the twig arms, mostly because I forgot about them, but I think the card looks great without them.
What a fun card this was to make! I love how everything came together so beautifully all because of this adorable little die set. With the addition of a few different companies, the entire card came together with Tim Holtz and Sizzix products. I love how even the older Sizzix tree die fits perfectly with the scale of the Chilly & Freezy.
Were you able to get your hands on this adorable die set? If you did, let me know in the comments below and please do share a picture of your creation!
Thank you for stopping by the craft room today and until next time, have a wonderful week!