Deer in Winter

Do you know what your favourite technique is? When faced with this question I realized that I don't really have a favourite. I know I love die cutting seeing as my Cuttlebug has never been out of reach when I'm crafting. Stamping and embossing seem to be a part of most projects too. I'm always surprised by how much I enjoy colouring, with Copics or watercolour pencils or Twinkling H2O's. But I really don't have a favourite technique. My favourite thing about papercrafting is that there are endless new techniques to try.

But for now, my newest favourite is playing with Molding Paste and I love my Impression Obsession dies, so I combined the two by making a stencil with the IO Birch Trees die ( DIE079-U). I masked off the bottom of a tag, then painted it with Distress Stains (Broken China & Chipped Sapphire). I painted over that using a clear paint. That worked really well because when I flicked Picket Fence Distress Stain on it, I was able to easily wipe off any big blobs and scrape off any molding paste that escaped under my stencil. YAY !!
I added a tiny bit of Gathered Twigs Distress Ink to the Molding Paste but didn't mix it together very well so it would create light and dark areas on the birch trees. I spread Molding paste on the bottom  and added Perfect Puff paint and heated it to get it to expand ( Super Cool!). The Cardinal is part of the same Birch Tree die set, and although I have IO deer dies, they were a little too small for this, so I used a chipboard deer from Michaels. The deer is covered with Creamy Brown Chalk ink with Gathered Twigs ink sponged around the edges.
I used a Martha Stewart snowflake border punch to get all the tiny little snowflakes that I tediously glued to my card and added glitter with a Quickie Glue Pen. :)
The sentiment is from the Impression Obsession All Occasion II set ( CL307).
This was so much fun to make a stencil for the Molding Paste with my dies, I can't wait to do it again !!
I'm entering this in the following challenges :
Impression Obsession Favourite Technique
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge  Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Anything Goes
The Male Room Nature Challenge
Allsorts Christmas Cheer
Totally Gorjuss Anything Goes with Snow