Dear Santa

I bought this set ages ago as I thought the cat from the Dear Santa stamp set from Avery Elle is just adorable. But I never got around to making a card with the cat, I have used a few of the sentiments from the set before so it was great to finally have a play with it. 

I'm playing along with 52 Christmas Card Throwdown latest challenge wanting CAS and one layer. I may have broken a few rules but I love my card and probably need a few more so will learn from my mistakes here when I make some more.

I stamped the cat image on an A2 card using Bristol Strathmore Smooth as I wanted to colour the cat up with my Copics. I had read that you can use the Bristol paper for Copic blending and wanted to try and it's a heavy weight card stock so I can make a base out of it unlike my usual blending cardstock paper (Xpress IT) which is too flimsy to be a card base.

I masked the cat and then ran a string of lights from Trees For Sale (Stampin' Up!) over the top of the cat. When I removed my mask I thought damn I should have done the Santa hat first, masked it, then the cat, then masked the cat, then the lights. Sshhh I had to glue the Santa hat on top so it didn't look out of kilter. So first mistake.

Second thing I did wrong was I forgot the Copic bleed would show in a one layer card. Luckily I only had coloured in 2 lights, so added wee Honey Bee gems on top for my coloured lights apart from the one behind the cat that is just to say peeking out. They look so pretty in real life my photo doesn't do them justice.

I decided I would go back to my Zig real colour brush markers which was my original plan (thank heavens the Memento ink didn't run with the water based markers or we could have had mistake no. 3!). Zigs love Stathmore Bristol Smooth paper so no worries there. I just used my light gray and mid-gray markers and an aquapainter. A bit of light pink for cheeks and ears.

The hat was stamped with Versafine Clair Nocturne ink and clear embossed. The hat and the bow were coloured up with a combo of the 3 reds I own; Light Carmine, Carmine Red and Wine Red. I then used a Versamarker marker to add some Versamark ink to the hat's fur and then embossed with White Puff Twinkle embossing powder from WOW. I then die cut the hat out with it's matching die and glued down to the top of the cat.

Then using my MISTI I added the sentiment from Trees For Sale set with the Versafine black ink and viola one cute Christmas cat! 

Supply List:
Stamps: Dear Santa (Avery Elle), Trees For Sale (SU!)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Clair Nocturne

Paper: Strathmore Bristol Smooth white

Other: Birthday Bash gems (Honey Bee), ZIG real color brush markers, clear EP, white puff twinkle EP (WOW)

Challenge: 52 Christmas Card Throwdown #22-32

I am loving all the Christmas challenges, it's great to finally use those sets you bought but have never used and now I have inked this one up I think it's going to get a few more cards made for all the other cat lovers in my life.

✿ Karen ✿