Iconic Christmas - Stamped or Painted?

Hello, Crafters.

I hope you've had a super weekend. 

Since our dear friend Liz passed away, and apart from the Incentive Trip, I've not taken any time off, but I did yesterday. 

Fortunately, hubby wasn't working this weekend, and we had a lovely relaxing day together. 

I feel so much brighter today that I've decided I'm always taking Sunday's off! 

I'll still post my Sunday video, because my videos are always ready the day before they go live, and are always scheduled to go live at 7 am.

Having said that, I'm still planning a little bit of time in my studio on a Sunday so I still get my daily fix of crafting! 

Yesterday evening I carried on playing with the Iconic Christmas Stamp Set and Ornamental Christmas Framelits. 

As all three cards are more or less identical, so you know which card I'm talking about, I've used a different Embossing Folder for the background of each card. 

Therefore the cards will be called Ruffled, Planks and Cable!

The first card I made yesterday was the Cable card, although the actual tree you see here is the second attempt! 

The Basic Black Archival Ink didn't stamp very well with my first attempt but, as I'd stamped it, I decided to use it for a practice. 
 
I stamped it with the two step stamps which allowed me another go at lining up the stamps.

The first test was to find out what the images would look like if I used my Marker Pens to fill in the little bits of white I missed when two-step stamping. 

I have to say I wasn't happy with the result as it showed darker areas where I'd also gone over areas that had already been coloured by stamping. 

Yesterday I noticed three little stamps in the set that I hadn't noticed previously! 

On the box cover, to the left of the complete trees, there are three tiny colouring stamps i.e. a bell, a reindeer and a gingerbread man. 

These are maent for the images on the complete tree, and I coloured the bell with Smokey Slate Ink, and Crumb Cake for the other two. 

I was amazed at the difference these made to the complete tree! 

I haven't put a sentiment on these cards, nor finished the insides - I can always do that later! - but I did utilise the tree trunk stamps and die!

I stamped the bark in Crumb Cake Ink, and then the background is Crumb Cake stamped off once. 

There is a die to cut the trunk out but it'd be very easy to cut freehand.

Next I decided to re-ink my Basic Black Archival Ink - never a good idea to use ink pad almost immediately after re-inking. LOL! 

I did the Planks card next, and this time I painted all the images using Marker Pens. 

Apart from going over edges a little bit now and again, I'm really happy with this outcome, but no good if you're not a fan of painting..................it was a little bit time-consuming, albeit very relaxing. 

On this card I also adhered the tree trunk using Tombow as opposed to using Dimensionals which I used on the other two cards. 

I think this actually gives the tree more dimension.

The third card is the Ruffled card and is the same as the Cable card, except the Basic Black Ink was more intense, because I'd re-inked the ink pad! 

I still have other ideas for cards that can be made using this bundle, but I'm putting it away for the time being and will come back to it later!

Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.