Peace to start the year

It's time for my first card as a member of the Christmas Card Throwdown design team!

We have a sketch challenge to kick us off for 2017.

I wanted to do something a bit special. I haven't used groovi for a challenge card before, so it was time for a bit of parchment.

I started with a snowflake for the star part of the sketch. I think snowflakes must be my most used Christmas image! These Clarity ones are so pretty, I use the stamps a lot too.

Next I add the frame. Straight lines for the outside, and wavy for the triangle - I see this as an envelope flap, although with hindsight I think a border along the top would have looked better. Doing this after the snowflake means the snowflake can sit over the frame.

Time to start filling in the spaces I've made. A word for the focal point - this is all worked from the back, so this is the first photo showing the front of the piece.

And now the really fun bit - filling in patterns. I used this floral groovi plate for the outside, but by just picking up the swirls and dots, and not embossing the flowers and leaves, it makes a more Christmassy background. It's so easy to just pick out the parts I want to use, and ignore the rest.

For the "envelope flap" I used smaller snowflakes around the word.

Finally, to make the word and borders stand out, I used the piercing grids to emboss a dotty pattern. I did all the dots, rather then trying for a fancy pattern in the border!

With all the embossing done, I add some colour. I used faber castell polychrome pencils, and then when I wanted more colours, distress markers as well.

This is what it looks like from the back - the colours are a lot more vibrant (you colour on the back so see them through the parchment on the front). It may not show well in the photo, but this also means you don't have to be too accurate - it's very forgiving if you go onto the lines.

To make the triangle stand out more, I brushed distress ink over the back. This is salty ocean and chipped sapphire.

For the background, I used the matching snowflake stamps from Clarity. I stamped in versa mark onto coated card, then blended distress ink over the top, giving a resist. The colours are salty ocean, chipped sapphire, picked raspberry and dusty concord.

To construct, I cut the parchment back to the border with a knife, cutting round the snowflake that peeked over the bottom. I also cut the background to fit a 7x7 card (keeping the rest for another day). I attached the parchment with super sticky tape under the coloured areas, then the background with a tape pen.

Edit: I forgot to say, I attached a plain piece of parchment behind the decorated piece, to increase the opacity so the background didn't overwhelm the design.

For a final touch, I embossed the large snowflake onto an off cut of parchment and coloured it to match the one on the card. I then pierced around the outside, and picot cut it out. I attached it above the base one, but offset, with a clear foam pad so it's raised a little. A tiny gem in the middle finishes it off.

I didn't do that much groovi work last year. I think I got caught up in the white work, which is beautiful but time consuming, so not always practical when you need a last minute card.

But as this shows, you can make a beautiful piece without whitework, and I love combining parchment and other techniques. So I'm going to try to play with my groovi stash more this year - watch this space!