Christmas in cream, aqua and brown

Here's my second Christmas card of the year, for the Christmas Card Throwdown.

We have a colour theme this time:

I really like the colour challenges. This combination didn't spark anything straight away for me, so I went to my gelli plate to have a play.

I started by trying a three layer print.

This is the first layer - brown acrylic spread very thin, and blotted through the brick stencil from Clarity.

Next I added aqua and quickly pressed the Clarity leafy swirl stencil into it, again blotting with punchinella. I waited for the exposed paint to dry, then whipped the stencil off (and into soapy water) and blotted with copier paper, to lift off the still-wet paint from under the stencil.

I then spread cream acrylic over the plate, laid the card over, rubbed it in and pulled a print.

And as you can see, this isn't as easy as Barbara Gray makes it look on TV! There are white patches where the paint has stayed on the plate (although it's not as bad as the photo looks, as the camera has bleached it out a bit).

Second go, I used a bit more paint, and this one isn't bad, but still have some bald patches.

Third time round I decide to simplify, and skip the first, brown layer. This works quite well, I have a full print (the bald bits on this photo are just from the camera), although i don't like the colour as much.

I have a a last go at this version, and use more paint again. After the first stage, it's looking good!

Not so much after the second stage! I think I used far too much cream paint, and the card got soggy and came apart, sticking to the gel plate. Ah well, live and learn.

Next time I try something different. This uses a brown layer and the brick stencil, lifted off with cream paint. Interesting, not nearly as pretty! But I love the waste.

This was from blotting the first layer, and is just on copier paper, but I will definitely use this for something.

The brown paint seems to be behaving better, so I then tried it with the leafy swirl stencil.

I really like this! And following the last one, I had brayered some cream paint onto card and used that to blot the first layer, instead of copier paper.

This is the result. Not bad either, although in real life it's a bit blurred and looks out of focus, so makes your eyes go a bit funny. So have to choose carefully how to use it!

After a morning's play, this is the selection I have to choose from. It's the brown leafy swirl, the rest go into the stash. I cut it down to size for a 5x7 card base, and edged with a brown sharpie.

I brayered cream paint onto a scrap piece of card. Using an alphabet stamp set from a charity shop, and potting soil archival ink, I stamped out the words I wanted, then cut them up with a craft knife.

I also brayered the aqua onto a larger scrap, to use for the frame and for some embellishments. I die cut a reindeer and some stars from this and the waste of the swirly background.

The circle is part of a die set from The Works. It's cut in 4 to make corners to use for the frame. This is a technique I saw on a card in I think the December challenge, which is a great way to make a frame as well as using a lot less card than the usual matting and layering.

I also used the aqua card to mount the words.

The last element is some cream crocheted lace, which I think I got from Tiger over the summer.

Then it is just a case of construction. The frame was made with strips of the aqua card, taped to the back of the main background, with the corners I'd made to cover up the joins. I used the aqua reindeer as a drop shadow to help the reindeer stand out, and the same with the larger stars. (The large brown stars have gone onto the insert.) I used foam pads to lift all the elements and give dimension.

The brown and cream are so soft and pretty in this card, and the little pops of aqua lift it nicely. Not a combination I'd have come up with, but glad I got to play with it.