spotlight on...arctic penguins

Next up in the spotlight series... arctic penguins!  I admit to having a weakness for shaped balloons and waving penguins:

They are even cuter when multiplied:

The fun part about using digital stamps is how they can be manipulated. I layered 3 snowman balloons together, and created a little penguin family. The baby penguin was mirror-imaged so that the scene would look more natural.  The sentiment is from another digital stamp in the shop - click!

Even without his family, he looks pretty cool. I printed, colored and cut out the penguin and his balloon and created a snowy scene for them.  I did some ink blending on a piece of white cardstock and then used a snowfall stencil and some white embossing paste to get the snowy texture.

I hope you like them! Thanks for stopping by!

♥.

fa la la!

Hi there! I have one last Alpine Carolers project to share for this release. I just want to thank the Mama Elephant girls, and all of the Ele-fans for making this an exciting past month for me!

Let's dive right in!

I created a couple's Christmas card, and borrowed elements from Arctic Penguins to do it: the hat on the mister and the cup of steaming cocoa for the missus.

Once I had everything stamped the way I wanted, I masked them both (and their accessories, and a snowy ground for them to stand on) and sponged on a light brown sky. I love how it makes the carolers stand out.

Before removing the masks, I grabbed another new set - Basic Borders - and used the polka dot strip to mimic a snowfall. It's very subtle, and shows unevenly on the card, so perfect for a snowy sky.

The wavy border from Tags a lot was perfect for stamping a nonchalant "fa la la" greeting. I accented it on either edge with a swipe of a green marker. It looks so much more festive that way!

To finish things off, I cut my panel with the Femme Frames rectangle die, and then cut into it again with the new Borderlines Trio edge die. I slipped in some candy cane patterned paper to make up the difference. I love the stitched border all the way around!

I hope you like what I've created! Thanks for stopping by!

♥.

chill out! {mama elephant stamp highlights}

It's the last of the stamp highlights today, and we're showing off the fun, new alpha set: Block Party Letters.

This alphabet set is so fun to use! You can color just the shadow, or the opposite, or go bananas and give it a polka dot veneer like I did here:



The penguins are so cute - I had to bunch them all up together. When you are masking multiple elements, I suggest stamping it all out on a scrap paper first, so you could determine the stamping order. I stamped the 2 middle dudes here, leaving space between them for a 3rd guy to be scrunched in.  Then, the ones on the fringes, with their accessories.



They kill me. I love how easily they make a card come together - I mean, just a swipe of blue to highlight their white bodies, some blushy cheeks and orange beak and skates... er, yup. skates.

I colored the letters with pink and blue markers, and then dotted on some polka dots with a white gel pen. It all works perfectly with the pink and blue colors: on the letters, on the penguins. I'm a matchy-matchy kind of girl.

I mounted everything onto a giant tag, which I framed out by coloring a soft grey around the edges. And glossy accents for the balloon. That was a must, no?

I hope you like it! Check out the ME blog for even more inspiration!

♥.

of penguins and carolers {mama elephant stamp highlights}

This is my second post of the day. If you're looking for lawn fawn gingerbread tags, scroll down or click *here.*

It's time for Mama Elephant stamp highlights! We're showing off 2 sets today, arctic penguins and jolly & merry. The sets were meant to work together, with images in the one and sentiments in the other.

I made 2 cards for you today. First off, a sweet little lonely penguin.



The ice blocks in the set are really small, and I wanted to have a huge one that would fill the entire card width. Some selective inking and voila!

Here's an idea of what I did, although I didn't end up using this for my final card:

If you stamp the penguin first, and then build the bigger ice-block around him it works so much better. You don't need the lines to join up over the masked penguin.

I hope the picture makes sense to you! It's really easy to customize almost any stamp this way.

Once I had him on his larger ice block, I used the partial die-cutting technique to cut them out together, and set him adrift on the ocean. Two different copic markers are all it took to make a sea and sky, and I used a white gel pen to doodle in some waves.



The sentiment is from jolly & merry, and so cute!

Speaking of jolly & merry, I just love the larger script words found in that set:



I created a giant tag shaped card, and used the starburst cover as a backdrop to my scene.  The alpine carolers are holding a string of Christmas lights.



Aren't they cute? A lot of masking and inking to get the entire tag covered in a night sky color, with a yellow glow for the sparkling lights.

I heat-embossed "merry" and let it spill up onto the images. It's nice and thin, so it doesn't overwhelm the carolers.

I hope you like both projects! There's more to see on the Mama Elephant blog today!

♥.