Layers of Blue

The current challenge over at Christmas Challenges with Sketches is to use the sketch on a gift bag. You can follow the link to see the sketch if you'd like; they ask that people don't repost it.

It's a very layered sketch. I like it, but normally I wouldn't attempt it -- lots of layers start looking really silly on a 2-inch-wide bookmark! However, I figured that a bag ought to give me plenty of room.

So I rummaged around in my wrapping supplies and found a bag I'd saved from some gift or other. It was blue, which was perfect: clearly I should do something wintery and snowflakey with the layers of the sketch.

I invested my creativity in making paper designs rather than altering the sketch much -- I decorated all the papers myself (except for the black one with big glittery white dots, which was a scrap). I think the black with silver snowflakes is probably the prettiest one... too bad it's mostly covered up!

Tip: My craft sheet was pretty messy after creating the first three or four papers -- white ink, silver ink, shimmer spritz and even some stray glitter and embossing power were everywhere! Don't waste this lovely mess -- take another piece of paper and rub it all over the craft sheet. Now you have a cleaner craft sheet and a cool piece of paper -- mine's the darker blue piece with the dove in the upper right.

I had a specific color inspiration, hence the use of black as well as blue and white -- but I can't show it, because it's the present inside the bag, and the recipient reads my blog.

(Hey Anya, I have a present for you...)

I'm entering this bag in the following challenges:

• Christmas Challenges (with Sketches) #53: Sketch with a Twist - Use a Bag
• Repeat Impressions Designer's Choice Challenge 125: Tags or Bags (bag, not tag... it would make an awfully large tag!)
• Stamptacular Sunday #193: Anything But a Card
• Divas by Design 64: Let It Snow
• Simon Says Stamp: Snowflakes
• Charisma Cardz #48: Christmas!
• Delightful Challenge: All About Christmas
• Sparkles Monthly #38: Christmas is Coming
• Top Tip Tuesday 91: Christmas (a Christmasy creation and a tip, too!)
• The Cupboard Trilogy #6: Frosty Winter

Supplies:

Bookmarks XXXIII: Cold Outside

Why is it that I can weave jillions of technique, color, and material challenges together without much of a problem, but I always hit a snag with adding a dang sentiment? It can't really be this hard!

Well, I guess it can be legitimately difficult when I am making a Christmas-y/winter-y bookmark and I have no such sentiments.

I stamped -- and paper-pieced, a first for me -- a cute set of mittens for the bookmark, so I wanted a sentiment to go with them and sort of shade the whole creation towards the Christmas-y side of winter-y. Obviously there's nothing specific to Christmas about a pair of mittens, especially for folks in the southern hemisphere!

And that is why I have been singing Christmas carols all evening, ones about the cold. In the end I had a bit of a hard time deciding between "Baby, It's Cold Outside" and "Let It Snow" (from which I was going to use the phrase "all the way home I'll be warm"). On the one hand, four words are a lot easier to squeeze in than six. On the other hand, have you ever really listened to the lyrics for "Baby, It's Cold Outside"? It's actually kinda creepy. Hey there, dude, spiking your lady's drink to get her to stay is not cool.

Regardless, aesthetics won out and that's the sentiment I ended up using, but please understand that on my bookmark it means "so put on some mittens", and not anything else.

Listening to the meaning of lyrics is awful and I recommend you never do it.

Anyway, I spent about an hour writing this silly four-word phrase out -- in pen, in embossing pen and powder, on strips of washi tape, in capitals, in lowercase, in seventy-odd combinations of the above... and finally I realized that not ten feet away was a computer with a color printer and the ability to download fonts. This one's called "Frosty", and is by Ben Balvanz of Font-a-licious. It's licensed for personal use, just like most stamp images are -- although I doubt it has any kind of angel policy.

All of the shiny metal is silver, but there was this light, and it was yellow, see, so a bunch of it looks gold. Which is kinda cool, but not an accurate representation of the project.

Christmas Challenges asks that people do not post their sketches (even to credit them, I guess?), but instead link to the relevant post. So there you are; some challenges absolutely require you post their inspiration pics, and some absolutely require that you not do so. Both approaches make a certain amount of sense.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Christmas Challenges #43: Sketch (I've turned the sketch sideways and moved the sentiment -- but since half the design team moved the sentiment, I figure that's okay.)
• The Stamp Spot: Purple, Stripes, and Metal (more metallic than real metal: silver origami paper, silver embossing powder, a little silver shimmer spritz, and smeared silver ink)
• The Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge #3: Purple (just a bit)
• My Mum's Craft Shop Challenge #76: Stars (at the top and bottom)
• Paper Playtime Challenge #84: PUNCHES + a sentiment (the stars at the top and the negative-image stars at the bottom are from a starry corner punch)
• Sparkles Christmas Challenge #20: Sparkle & Bling (sparkly embossing powder, silver embossing powder, silver shimmer spritz, rubbed some silver ink around...)
• Simon Says Stamp and Show: For the Love of Sparkle (see above list)
• Great Impressions: Sentimental Journey (I'm sorry, I don't own any Great Impressions stamps!)
• Penny Black and more @ Allsorts: Early Christmas Makes (not a Penny Black image, as I'm sure you can tell)
• Fashionista Challenge #7: Anything Goes CHRISTMAS
• Robyn's Fetish Challenge #126: Book Marks
• Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes (no October Afternoon on this one)
• Ladybug Crafts: Anything Goes

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party.

Supplies: