Christmas Red, Green and White

Last weekend I visited the Craft Barn for their monthly demo day and saw a really different set of Christmas cards that I just had to try out. The technique is pretty easy and very satisfying to do.

Take one piece of white card and cover it in distress inks. I chose picked raspberry and evergreen bough as they are Christmas colours. Where they overlap and blend it makes a nice purple shade. Spritz the background with water.
Then layer white paint on top through various sized circle stencils, layering them up and overlapping the circles until you achieve the look you want. I made my stencils using punches and a scrap of Kraft card. I also substituted the acrylic paint for ColorBox Mix'd Media ink which is more of a paint than an ink.

The finished panel is the one bottom right in the picture :

The panel on the left was the same technique but using distress stain instead of ink which I don't think works very well, it would take a lot of paint layering to knock those colours back. The small panel at the top of the photo is just left over ink spritzed with water and card smooched through it. This one was used to stamp the Merry Christmas sentiment (Kaisercraft Christmas Carol set).

This is the finished card with black dots added around the border:

Thanks go to the Craft Barn demonstrator for the inspiration.

Thanks

"Less is More" : Week 145 Challenge - A one layer card - Thanks

"Thanks" or "Thank You"? I had this conversation with a friend recently who felt quite strongly that "Thanks" was not so sincere as saying "Thank You". Interesting isn't it. Its even more difficult to describe her reasoning because it needs to be heard not read. Where sentiments on cards are concerned, I tend not to use them very much apart from the standard "Happy Birthday", "Happy Christmas" or the more formal "Best Wishes". Personally, I have no problem with "Thanks", its an informal version of "Thank You". Language is tricky especially when written.

On to the card. My entry for the LIM challenge (because I like the challenge of one layer cards) uses my favourite leaf, a very old wood mounted stamp that I've had for years. I used masking tape to make the stripes in distress ink then masked them out and stamped the leaves in Colorbox chalk autumn shades. Then I over-stamped the red leaves in red pepper archival ink, drew the black lines around my "ribbon" and added the Thank You sentiment (Penny Black Gratitude set).
The colours have not come out to well in the photo which is a shame. I don't like this time of year, difficult to get photos as the light is not so good.

Spots and Stripes

I am amazed at how quickly people who can knit manage to make scarves. My Auntie offered to knit one for me if I sent the yarn to her. The wool was purchased on Monday evening on the way home from work, posted on Tuesday lunchtime and the finished article has just arrived through my letterbox this morning. Less than a week turnaround, fabulous!

So, I need to send her a card to say Thank you.

Inspired by Jen's example for this week's Less is More challenge : One Layer Card with Spots and Stripes, I made this quick card:

The stripes are stamped using Brilliance ink in Galaxy Gold, stamp is from Hero Arts.

To add the spots I used a Crafters Workshop mask called mini punchinella with 3 colours of Colorbox chalk cats eyes.

The flower pot is from Polka Doodles and I added the black doodled lines around the stripes which was the idea from Jen's design that I wanted to try. My hand was not too steady but the doodling ties the design together.

Christmas Decorations

Christmas is over and we have the new year to look forward to so just to finish off December's Christmas themes, here are a couple of things I made for my Mum for Christmas. Both were inspired by trips to the Craft Barn demo days and both used Tando Creative products.

For this winter scene I used acrylic paint for the layers and some sparkle Mod Podge on the mountains. The windows and doors are drawn with a black micron pen and the title stamped and covered with glossy accents. The background is Tim Holtz tissue paper.

These Tando Creative stockings were fun to make, a made a few for friends and relations and kept one for myself. This one is painted with PaperArtsy Fresco Finish chalk acrylic paint in rose. This paint is opaque and so easy to work with, I think I might need to build up a collection of these paints, they are so versatile and the colours are fab. 

The swirl stamped image is from Personal Impressions and stamped using colorbox ink and embossed with fine clear embossing powder. The stocking is then triple embossed and some Perfect Pearls powder added with a small paintbrush before embossing to make an irridescent shimmer on the stocking. The same technique is used for the top of the stocking which I painted in black adding blue mica powder.

I hope you all had a happy Christmas and wish you all the best for the New Year.  

Julia x

Gilding Flakes

CASology Week #14 : LEAF

The theme for the challenge this week is LEAF so this gave me the opportunity to try out a technique I saw on TV this morning using gilding flakes and double sided adhesive. The leaf is stamped directly onto the sticky adhesive in black archival ink, cover with a piece of acetate, remove the backing of the adhesive and apply the gliding flakes with a pair of tweezers. The trick is to then put it onto another piece of double sided adhesive and cut out the image, peel off the backing paper and it is ready to mount on the card.

I stamped the same leaf image using colorbox fluid chalks directly onto the white card and then added the gilded leaf. The sentiment is a copper peel off sticker and to match the black outline of the leaf I added a thin black line with a black micron pen.

I'm quite pleased with the result, I may try this again.

Ingredients:
White Cardstock
Artcoe Gilding Flake : Copper Thunder
ColorBox Fluid chalk and black archival ink
Small piece of acetate
Double sided adhesive

Happy Saturday X