Today I am stamping with this adorable stamp set from The Cat’s Pajamas, called This Could be Vodka.  It is an adorable set of images with some fun sentiments.  The images are very versatile and below you’ll see how I’ve created a winter/holiday card with them.  I’ll be linking this up to the 2017 Winter Coffee Lover’s Hop  and the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge.  Initially I was working with one image, then I remembered hearing another crafter comment about her favorite stamp set: “I love the images so much I want to use them all”, and so, I’ve used them all.

To start my design, I made a number of masks and posed them in different designs on regular copy paper until I was happy with the layout.  I brought out my stamp positioner tool and stamped my first image, masked it, stamped the second and third.  What was really important in my preparation was being aware of what part of the images I wanted to NOT stamp or make sure were blocked out areas for my design.  If you see my picture below, I’ve left out the cats tail and fish, I blocked part of the cats head so I could draw in additional images.  My card below shows the items I’ve sketched in to bring some winter/holiday spirit to my design.

Now that I have all the details sketched, I can start adding the colors. One technique I have is to use my StampinUp markers and put ink on an acrylic block then use it with water and a paintbrush, essentially water coloring with ink.  I went ahead and colored up these critters.

Satisfied with the coloring, I had to find the right sentiment.  I looked through so many and kept coming back to this one, so it had to be the right one.  It’s from Altenew’s Coffee Love stamp set: COFFEE is a hug in a mug.  First things first though, I had to decide what the background would be.  If I put the sentiment on then needed to do something over it, it might not work right.  So, I stopped for the day to ponder the background.  Atleast I had the sentiment chosen!

Back at the project again, and I’ve decided the cups need to be on a table and the background would be wallpaper.  Later, I decided to put the holiday tree in as well. Using my markers and ruler (direct to paper) I drew a line across the card to mark the table height, then I drew lines 1/2″ apart for each plank. I colored all the wood a light color, then went back and added the wood streaks with two darker colors, and lastly came back over with the first, lightest color pen I used.  To draw the holiday tree, I pull out my Sakura Koi water colors and free hand drew in a tree and used the brown from the pallet and a ruler to draw in the background wallpaper.  I embossed the sentiment in black powder. The last touch, was to add the special details.  I added some glitter to the tree and animals, some gel pen highlights, bells on the elf.

This was such a fun card to design and really quite simple.  I can see this stamp set could easily be used for so many different occasions.  I hope you’ll get inspired and make your own creation.

Thanks for stopping by.  Please feel free to let me know what in particular stands out in this card for you.