Penguins in the Snow

Let it snow...! A cheerful and colourful Christmas card, which is fun to make. It uses a triangle card as well, which really helps it stand out from the crowd.

Materials and Tools

• Penguin Fun Clear Stamp
• Triangular shaped card blank
• Black StazOn Ink Pad
• Blue "Twinkling H20" paint
• Diamond Glitter Glue
• Embossing Pens : black, red, bottle green and orange
• Mini mounting pads
• White card
• Mini Glue Dots
• Aquaflow brush or paintbrush and water

1. First, we need to colour in the sky, so that this has time to dry. Mix up some blue Twinkling H20 paint with some water on a palette or plate (this is a watercolour paint with shimmery glitter in it - if you don't have any of this any paint will do that will let you create a nice blue wash effect) . Test the colour on a small are of white card until you are happy with the effect, before you use it on the card blank. Using a thick brush or cotton wool ball, colour just the top half of the card blank blue. It looks quite good if you have a wavy line at the bottom, as it makes the background look hilly. Leave the paint to dry completely.

2. The next step is to make the Penguin topper...
Using the black StazOn ink pad (a waterproof ink), stamp the penguins on the sleigh onto white card, leaving enough space around the edges to cut it out. Stamp a small tree onto the white card, again leaving enough space to cut it out. When the ink is dry (this doesn't take long), colour in the penguins, the sleigh and the tree. I used embossing pens to do this. On a palette or plate, colour in a small patch with the pen, then use an aqua flow brush or paintbrush and water, to dilute the ink. Once you have the colour that you want, you can paint onto the stamped image to colour it in. To get brown, mix orange and black. It is wise to leave each colour to dry, before starting to paint in the next colour. You could use water colour pencils or colouring pens to colour in the stamped images if you like.

3. We now need to add some snow...
This stage can only be done once everything else is dry, otherwise the colours will seep into the glitter glue. Put some dots of glitter glue onto the blue sky, to form snowflakes and draw a line along the bottom of the blue, so that it creates a snowy horizon. Draw a curvy line going across the card, to make the ground look hilly. Lay this out to dry - the glitter glue takes a little while to dry, so you need to be very careful not to smudge it!

4. To make the wording topper, print "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow..." onto white card and cut this out. I used the FingerGuard trimmer to do this, and used the deckle edged blade that comes with the trimmer to cut the top, to make it look as if it is covered in snow. Put glitter glue along the top, to make it look even snowier and leave to dry. Add some snow to the penguins hats, but check that the paint is dry first!

Handy Hint: You can rubber stamp a message onto white card instead of using a printer if you prefer.

5. The last step, once everything is dry, is to stick it all together...

Put mini mounting pads onto the back of the penguin topper and stick this onto the card centrally, so that it covers the join between the sky and the snow. Use a mini glue dot to stick the tree at a jaunty angle, so that it comes off the edge of the card. Finally, use some mini mounting pads to stick the wording topper onto the bottom of the card.

Your masterpiece is finished!