The one that got away

The 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week is about stencilling. I've used stencilling for the last two weeks, so I'm on a roll for this one.

I don't have a lot of time this week, and have birthday cards, new baby cards and a mother's day card to make as well, so this one needed to be quick and simple. Which it is, but didn't turn out quite as planned, it got away from me a bit. I think it's the least Christmassy looking Christmas card I've ever made!

I started with 7x7 Clarity stencil card, and the Vintage Label stencil from That Special Touch. I used a little bit of a repositionable tape pen to hold the stencil in the middle of the card. With Clarity stencil brushes, I added ripe persimmon distress ink to one side, and dusty concord to the other, blending where they met.

The plan had been to add tumbled glass snowflakes in the middle, but I decide that would be too much, so went with the same colours, dry brushing for a subtle look. The stencil is Snow Flurry by That Special Touch.

I raided my stash of bits and bobs I've already made and found this Merry Christmas die cut, in Centura Pearl hint of gold.

A really useful die! But it disappears a bit in white, so I take another piece of the Centura Pearl card and add the same distress inks. I started with the brushes again, then used the blending tool to get a deeper colour.

I cut it with the same die, across the blend on colour.

The idea is to use this on top, with the white one as a drop shadow.

I also kept the negative piece, and all the bits from the middle of the die, to try to make another topper.

We'll see if I can not lose them all, and stick them down in the right place so it's legible.

So I have all the bits now. I trimmed the background down, and brushed the edges so they weren't bright white. Stick the sentiment down (both layers), and mount on a 7x7 white card. Simple. Not even foam tape on this one, very postage friendly!

(A confession - I don't have 7x7 cards, and didn't want to cut an 8x8 down, so it's just mounted on a piece of card for the photos, with removable tape, until I can get the right card bases.)