Helloooooo friends! Long time no see! November was quite a whirlwind of travel and holidays, and while I knew I’d have less time to create, I didn’t expect not to spend any time in my craft at all! Yikes!

Anyway, today I am excited to share a card I made as a guest designer for the latest CASology challenge! The cue word this week is NORTH, which seems appropriate for this time of year: it’s winter in the northern hemisphere; Christmas is coming and Santa’s busy at the North Pole; my system was shocked after getting on a plane in hot and humid Costa Rica and getting off that plane in frigid and snowy Toronto…

I went with the “frozen north” interpretation, because that was clearly what was on my mind when I sat down to make my card.

To start off, I used the tree cluster stamp from the Arctic Starry Night stamp set from Flora & Fauna, stamping it with VersaMark ink and heat embossing with Brutus Monroe Alabaster embossing powder. I knew I was going to build the entire card around this stamp, so placement was key. I love a card that makes use of the “rule of thirds” or off-centered arrangement, so I stamped it a bit above center on my white card base (Neenah solar white 110lb).

Next, I used post-it tape to tape off a rectangular box around the trees in preparation for ink blending. I used Tumbled Glass, Broken China, and Faded Jeans Distress Oxide inks and Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink to create my winter sky. I wanted more control over my “bokeh” so instead of flicking water onto the blended area, I carefully dabbed with a waterbrush, creating tiny and less tiny dots that looked like snow on a lens. I followed that with a white gel pen to create more brilliant snow and stars. To keep the card so very CAS, I used a small-type sentiment from the same stamp set, placing it just underneath the image.

What does “north” make you think of? I hope to see you over on the CASology challenge linkup this week!