For my first card, I wanted to think outside the box and not just do a winter theme. I looked through my stamps: sheep, cow, chicken, bunny... ah okay, there's something there that I can use.
For the front piece of cardstock, first I punched the edges with a border punch. For the sheep, I did a technique called mirrored stamping. This is where you stamp an image on cardstock the way it was intended, then you stamp a second time on the back of a somewhat flat stamp (yes, on the back of another stamp), then the image becomes a mirrored image when you stamp on the cardstock. You may have to draw over the lines to make them more crisp (see, my lines were faded), but that's no biggie. Uh, maybe pictures would make this easier?
Next, I colored them in using a thin brush with some water and Antique Linen Distress Ink. I dried everything with my heat gun before moving onto the embossing. With an anti-static powder (aka baby powder in an old thin sock), I prepped the cardstock. This keeps the emboss powder from leaving specks behind where you didn't want them. I stamped the xoxoxo in versamark and heat embossed with white emboss powder. I didn't bother with masking anything off, because I knew I could just brush off any that overlapped the sheep with a dry thin brush. I finished the bottom part off by sponging on some Antique Linen (and avoiding the sheep) to help ground them.
The top part was missing something, so I added the sentiment. I also heat embossed (with Holographic Emboss Powder) some hearts coming from the left side.
Finishing touches: I filled in the hearts with glossy accents (and one closest to the sheep with Enamel Accents). I put some Stickles on the sheep and smoothed out the glue with my fingertip. I couldn't stop there, so I spritzed the whole card with a mixture of Perfect Pearls and water. I just LOVE the subtle shimmer it gives the card!
Products I used:
Embellishments: Holographic Stickles