You're the marshmallows to my cocoa...

Hello friends!

I'm up on the Hello Bluebird blog with a cute cold weather card to bring smiles during these winter days. As I was flipping through my collection of Hello Bluebird stamp sets the cute little hedgehog riding on a sled in the Snow Day set caught my eye. Having kept a pair of hedgehogs as pets years ago, I still have a soft spot in my heart for these prickly little critters. Now I just needed to figure out where this guy was headed, so I continued to flip through my stamps until I found another hedgie in the Coffee Friends set. That's when the idea for a scene finally came together... an early winter morning deep in the woods where all of the forest critters come to start their day with a warm cup of cocoa together. I liked the idea of the owl from Coffee Friends serving everyone their drinks so I decided to place him in the large tree from the Tree Neighbors set through a bit of masking. So far the scene was coming together quite nicely but I wanted one more critter to round out the crew. I fell in love with the tiny bunny from the O Christmas Tree set with his back turned and he was perfectly posed to mask an extra venti sized to-go cup from the Autumn Gatherings set into his paws. Now this gathering of friends seemed complete and it was time to color. Rather than the usual aquas and blues of winter snow I opted for a pretty purple and yellow color scheme in the sky and snow that I colored in behind them using Copic markers. The distant tree silhouettes were also sketched in using three different shades of purple to create the illusion of them receding into the distance using aerial perspective. If you have the Tree Neighbors set you may also notice that I colored in a finished edge on the left side of the tree that is cut off on the original stamp. Coloring in a couple more bark lines by hand is a simple way to get more use out of this awesome stamp because now I can place it anywhere on the card that I want. Finally, I completed this friendly get-together with a sentiment from the Cocoa Party set stamped in the same Memento Rich Cocoa ink that I used to stamp the entire scene. Mixing and matching images from various stamp sets is one of my most favorite things as it really expands the different kinds of stories you can tell with your cards. So always be looking at the stamp sets in your collection with an eye towards new combinations for some extra crafty fun. ;)

Toodles!

Supply list:
cardstock- My Favorite Things and Copic X-Press It
stamps- Hello Bluebird (Autumn Gatherings, O Christmas Tree, Snow Day, Tree Neighbors and Cocoa Party)
ink- Memento rich cocoa
My Favorite Things A2 stitched rectangle stax set 1
Sharpie extra fin white pen
Copic markers:
big tree- E42, E43, E44, E47, W2, W3, W4, W5
sky/snow/trees- Y0000, YR30, YR31, RV000, RV00, RV63, V12, V15, V17, BV0000, BV000, BV01
sled- E41, E43, E44, C4
hedgies- E50, E30, E31, E43, R000, R30, E53, E55, E43, E44
squirrel- N0, N1, N2, N3, N4, N5, R000, R30
bunny- C0, C1, C2, C3, R000, R30, 0
owl- E21, E23, E34, E42, E43, E44, YR31, YR24
scarves/hats- YR30, YR21, Y000, Y11, E81, E84, E50, YG01, YG93, YG95, YG97, V12, V15, V17, BV04
cocoa cups- C1, C3, W2, E27, E31, E33, E34, E44