{"id":6172,"date":"2013-12-23T03:46:54","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T20:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catchingfireflies.com\/blog\/?p=6172"},"modified":"2014-01-08T09:35:48","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T14:35:48","slug":"walking-in-a-winter-whimsyland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.catchingfirefliesgifts.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/walking-in-a-winter-whimsyland\/","title":{"rendered":"walking in a winter whimsyland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Creating clever and fun Christmas cards is sorta my thing. \u00a0I take it on as a creative challenge from year to year always fearing I will someday run out of ideas. \u00a0 Luckily my international daughters have been my inspiration the last few years with our campy Christmas sweater picture<\/a> and also with our fun North Pole photo booth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The spark for this year’s card was ignited when our Finnish exchange student, Iitu started working on her fashion merchandising project for finals. \u00a0She had to construct a miniature version of what kind of clothing store she would like to create. \u00a0This is what she envisioned…<\/p>\n

\"shadow<\/a><\/p>\n

Her attention to detail is crazy impressive… I mean ~ making an Ikea cube shelf out of copy paper?! \u00a0Not to mention even creating logo for her small shopping bag. \u00a0And you can’t really see it, but she even drew a keyboard on the computer :-)<\/p>\n

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After seeing this impressive project, my imaginary winter wonderland wheels started turning.<\/p>\n

\"creative<\/a><\/p>\n

First, the box. \u00a0Then the doodles.<\/p>\n

I’m a big fan of Claudine Hellmuth’s work<\/a> and she is the other half of what inspired this card. \u00a0If you love this look, I encourage you to create your own family winter scene with one of her kits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"creative<\/a><\/p>\n

After doodling our little family unit, I scanned them into photoshop then sized and grouped them to fit the box. \u00a0I also cut out photos of our heads and added them to our bodies.<\/p>\n

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I chose to color in the bodies by hand for a more homemade look. \u00a0Iitu was in charge of creating our little village of homes and oh-s0-sweet snowflakes. \u00a0This girl could easily doodle me right out of a job! \u00a0She is one talented chica.<\/p>\n

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See what I’m talking about! \u00a0Even right down to the snow covered bush with colorful Christmas lights. \u00a0Oh, it was also her idea to create our sparkling tree out of pipe cleaners.<\/p>\n

\"family<\/a><\/p>\n

I cut out snow drifts and hung the snowflakes to create depth. \u00a0 When I photographed the box for our card image, the sun happened to shining bright, which added shadows to our little world so that was a bonus detail!<\/p>\n

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Here is the image I chose for our card. \u00a0You might notice a change of color in Steve’s wardrobe. \u00a0This was done with a little photoshop magic since he was not so fond of the colors I originally chose for him. \u00a0I get it… this is a very girly card ~ he wanted blue pants at least ;-)<\/p>\n

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Here is the end product. \u00a0I had color copies made, then cut and washi-taped our winter whimsyland to colorful card stock for a most non-traditional Christmas card. \u00a0I hope it brought smiles to many faces. \u00a0After this accomplishment…. I don’t even want to think about what to do next year! \u00a0I might have to collaborate with Iitu on Skype to top this one.<\/p>\n

Like to see what happens behind the scenes around catching fireflies? \u00a0Simply\u00a0<\/span>subscribe to this blog<\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll email you our latest creative endeavors.<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n