gnome for the holidays with Spellbinders
Hello my fabulous friends!
If you follow me on Instagram, you might have noticed that I love coloring... and I'm especially in love with watercolors right now... So I was excited when Spellbinders sent me some fabulous stamp sets to create with!
Spellbinders is celebrating Christmas in July, so today's project was created with the new Holiday Gnomes stamp set.
*Affiliate links have been used, this doesn't change the price you pay, but it does really help me continue bringing you exciting new content, so thank you!
Please note, that while some products for this project were given to me by Spellbinders, but my opinions remain my own.
Stamp: Spellbinders Holiday Gnomes
Ink: InkOn3 Fadeout ink
Color: watercolors
Hot Foil Plates: Spellbinders Gifts of Christmas, Essentials Duo Lines Glimmer Rectangle
Foil: Spellbinders Champagne
While this stamp set includes 3 unique gnomes, I decided to use some repetition and create my card with just one stamp. This is such a fun little gnome to color! The open areas in his hat means there's plenty of room to create your own custom designs! I kept things fairly simple, and used this as an opportunity to practice white hair in watercolors.
Fun tip: I know many people (including me) like to get an early start on the stack of holiday cards... However, if it's too early for you, these gnomes don't have to be holiday gnomes... this particular fellow could fit many seasons or occasions depending on the colors and sentiments you choose to use!
Speaking of sentiments, the second new product featured in this card in the Hot Foil Plate set Gifts of Christmas. It is a fabulous foil plate set featuring 3 Christmas sentiments, that I'm sure will get lots of use when I start making my Christmas cards in earnest!
To give my stamped panel (and sentiment) a nice border, I used my Glimmer Hot Foil machine and the Essentials Duo Line Glimmer Rectangles hot plate set. If you look closely, you will notice that it didn't give me a perfectly foiled border. Personally, I don't mind the rustic feel for this card, but I know it can be frustrating when you want a perfectly foiled design, and you don't get it. My card wasn't perfectly foiled for 2 main reasons (both of them MY fault, not due to any flaw in the products).
1- my choice of paper. Foil does best on smooth paper. I like painting on cold press watercolor paper which is quite textured. If you want a better foiling experience on a watercolor project, try using a hot press watercolor paper. It's much smoother!
2- my die cut machine is wearing out. Sad, but true. After more than a decade of hard use, my machine just doesn't put the same amount of pressure on dies and hot plates as it used to. When I want a solid foil line, I add more shims to my sandwich for more pressure but I just didn't do that here.
You can find Holiday Gnomes, Gifts of Christmas, and so much more over on the Spellbinders website.
See you soon!
Kassi
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