We wish you a merry christmas...

Time for my second "Musical Notation" card for the current Christmas Card Throwdown challenge.

For this one I played with my gel plate petites, and a music stencil from stamps away.

I used the rectangle gel plate, with distress ink. I started with aged mahogany and wild honey on the plate (spread with a brayer). Placing the stencil over the card (Clarity stencil card cut to size for a 5x7 card blank), I pressed the plate through it.

The gel plate had the ink left where the stencil had been, so I printed this onto a separate piece of card.

I repeated this to cover the whole card, using brushed corduroy ink as well.

This was the main piece...

... and this is the "waste".

And this time, I preferred the waste and ended up using it for the card! I'll use the other another time.

I also thought I'd use the ink left on the stencil, so put it through the grand calibur with some card.

Oops, I have a reflected image! Pretty though, so I could do this with the other side of the stencil some time.

But turning it over, the embossed image is lovely too.

Another one for another day.

So, to get back to today and this card. I trimmed the piece I'd made down, to avoid the blotchy corner. I cut another piece of stencil card larger, to frame it. I wanted to write the words to the song around it, but couldn't work out how. I didn't have a suitable stamp, I tried some alphabet stamps but they looked wrong or were too big. So in the end I ruled some pencil lines and wrote it in - trying to stay upright as my normal handwriting slopes backwards and looks odd for this kind of thing! I changed some of the letters, they're more curly than my normal writing, it still looks a bit strange to me but I hope if you don't know my writing it can pass as okay!

I rubbed out the pencil, and edged the centre piece with wild honey distress marker, and the frame with black sharpie.

I attached to a 6x6 card blank with a tape pen. The final touch, some mdf music shapes. I saw these in a little shop when I was visiting my mum earlier in the week, and thought they were perfect for the challenge! I could have coloured them, but I like the natural colour on this card. I attached them with silicon glue.

Another take on this challenge, with two more musical backgrounds in the stash for another time - I think this theme is so versatile, there are so many cards I could make!

To join in, visit the Christmas Card Throwdown. You have until midnight BST on Friday 14th April to enter. Good luck!