Wintry, atmospheric birthday card
For my 1st Design Team make of 2025 I’ve used one of my all time favourite stamp sets NIGHT OWL combined with THE FOREST stencil and a sentiment from BEST BIRTHDAY EVER.
I adore this stamp set, it’s perfect for masculine cards, teenage cards and wildlife lover cards. It really is one of my most used sets.
To find out how I created this wintry, atmospheric birthday card, please read on…
Tutorial
To begin I pressed distress ink straight onto my craft mat and spritzed with a little water. I then tapped a piece of 8.5x19.5cm 300gsm smooth white card repeatedly into the ink and dried using a heat tool. I repeated this in shades of grey distress ink and shimmery distress ink sprays drying in between layers. I left quite a bit of white card as my vision after stencilling was to try and create a birch tree effect.
Next I placed THE FOREST stencil over the inky background and brushed through distress inks in prized ribbon and chipped sapphire. I was really pleased with how the speckled, grey/white trees contrasted with the darkness of the forest.
Using an old toothbrush I then spattered lots of bleed proof white paint over the panel to give a wintry snowy feel to the background. This was set aside to dry completely.
The main image from NIGHT OWL was stamped in black and then clear heat embossed onto a piece of 300gsm scrap card.
This was coloured using Derwent Inktense watercolour pencils. I didn’t colour the whole owl in as I wanted a snowy owl effect but didn’t want the owl completely white so just used a little colour. I then fussy cut the owl leaving a narrow white border.
On the now dry background panel I stamped in black at random height and intervals the tree branch stem stamp from NIGHT OWL and clear heat embossed. I also stamped the “Happy Birthday” sentiment from BEST BIRTHDAY EVER onto white card and cut this into a little panel. I glued this onto several layers of card to make a really chunky sentiment tag and edged with a little blue ink that was left in my stencil brush. I also darkened the edges of the background panel with a little chipped sapphire distress ink.
To assemble the card I mat and layered the background panel onto navy & bronze card before attaching to the front of a DL sized card blank. I glued down the sentiment and fastened the owl to the card using foam pads to give height.
For once I decided against further embellishments as the stencilled, snowy, shimmery background was perfect (to me) as it was.
Products Used
Night Owl Stamp Set
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The Forest Stencil
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Best Birthday Ever Stamp Set
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