A Christmas landscape

The theme at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week is Christmas Landscapes.

A bit of a favourite of mine, this one. I'm having an acetate phase at the moment, so decided to add a slight twist. And of course, I had to use something that had been in my stash for ages unused. This week, it was a sentiment stamp from a set that I can't even remember where I got it - maybe from a magazine? - as well as a snowman from the ClarityStamp Christmas Wee Folk set, and an edge die that I got with a magazine, although I haven't had that for very long.

I started with the landscape background. I tried working straight onto the card blank (13.5cm square) to see how it would take the ink - it took it fine, which kept the card construction clean and simple.

I started with some torn paper hills, using iced spruce distress ink and a blending tool sponge, and added some trees (also from the Christmas Wee Folk).

I used second generation stamping for the more distant trees.

I added a moon mask (that I'd already cut from a post it and used before) then brushed in the sky, using iced spruce again as a base coat. I also used the sponge around the moon to sharpen the edges.

You can just see the little pencil mark in the sky to show me where the border die is going to sit.

I then darkened the sky with chipped sapphire distress ink - I love this combination for atmospheric skies!

The next part of the card is an acetate layer. I positioned it over the background and stamped in my sentiment and snowman. I used stazon permanent ink, as it's quite dry and slides about less than the archival.

While that dried, I die cut my edge piece, from Centura Pearl hint of gold card.

I didn't take a picture of that, so back to the acetate! I dug out my glass paints - I used to do a lot of glass painting, although haven't done anything for years now - to add touches of colour to the snowman's nose, hat and pipe.

Once that had dried, I used gesso to colour him a solid white. All the colour was added from behind, so it didn't obscure the line art.

I also added snow to the acetate - gesso again, and I used the groovi parchment stylus, a trick from Barbara Gray.

Then it was just construction. I trimmed the edges of the card base, which were very dark with ink, then lined up the acetate where I wanted it and cut it to size. (I'd deliberately left it a little larger to give me wiggle room.) I cut the border to the right width, with about an inch spare to fold over the back of the card, and scored and folded it. I joined the pieces together with super sticky tape, and a bit of glue on the narrow parts of the border.

As the acetate is only attached at the top, it can be lifted to see the simple landscape below.





The end result has the cleanliness I was aiming for, with a bit of fun with this cheeky looking snowman.