Stars, Snow, and Trees

I love the quiet of a snowy night when the air is crisp the moon is shining bright and you can see the stars.  Of course it is too cold to stay out too long and look at the stars, but especially in the holidays it is nice to step outside and enjoy the peace of of the stars.

Here are two projects for the Hero Arts Monthly Challenge and for Louise's Tag Tuesday Challenge. Louise challenged us to use the colors Yellow, Green and brown in a tag for the holidays. The Stamp Man challenge is anything goes for a tag.   Hero Arts challenge is to create a project for thank you, color challenge and / or make it shiny.

My tag started from the colors and this beautiful Hero Arts stamp called Starry Night.

The starry night was stamped on white cardstock using Versafine Vintage Sepia and heat embossed with Zing Chestnut embossing powder.  Sponge forest moss Ranger Distress ink over the tree and stem. Add a little brown color pencil to the stem. color the stars using yellow watercolor pencils. Sponge around the edges of the tag using Vintage Photo and Antique linen. Stamp the little birds and emboss using the same ink and embossing powder as the background. The shiny is in the embossing powder and the gems added to the sparkly stars.

The top of the tag was stamped using Hero Arts DesignBlock Starry Sky using a variety of Ranger Distress inks (yellow, light orange, and brown).

I always get asked about this sentiment. I love it and it is from Penny Black called All the Stars.

My card started from a beautiful new stamp from the Hero Arts 2011 catalog:

 

 I had this idea to create birch trees in the forest and had to add the pop of the cranberry for the cardinals. The sentiment is another favorite of mine which is from Northwoods Rubber Stamps.  

To create the background: Ink up trees with versamark watermark ink pad entirely. Smudge edges of tree with Memento London Fog. Stamp onto white cardstock. Heat emboss using clear embossing powder. Sponge on grey, light blue and dark blue dye inks over background. Stamp snow flakes and emboss using white and kaleidoscope embossing powder.

The birds are from a Martha Stewart clear set and stamped using Memento Rhubarb Stalk dye ink. 

Hope you are all ready for the holidays. We are having a cookie party today for my youngest and a few of her friends and then off to some friends for dinner and gift exchange. 

Suzz