Oh, so pretty

For her last week as host of the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, Jenny has chosen a fabulous stash challenge - Stencil.

So many options for what to do with this one! I went for something very simple, and I hope it doesn't sound boastful if I say I think it's turned out beautifully!

I used two frame stencils, from That Special Touch. I placed them at an angle on my card, to form a curve, then brushed distress ink over them. I used bundled sage on the holly one and tumbled glass on the snowflakes. Light colours as this is a base layer to give definition.

 

With the stencil still in place, I spritzed water onto the card in the same area, then removed the stencil. I sprinkled on brushos and left them to react in the water and dry. I used leaf green for the holly, and ultramarine with a touch of turquoise for the snowflakes.

 

Once they were completely dry, I could tap off the brusho in the dry areas that hadn't reacted.

The sentiments were stamped onto offcuts of the backgrounds from when I cut them to size. I used archival ink, in fern green and watering can. I edged the sentiment and base with the inks too.

 

Very simple, but oh, so pretty! For once, it's not the snowflakes that have won me over, my favourite is the holly.

 

 But the snowflakes are gorgeous too.

To play along, visit us at the 52CCT blog, where you'll also find all the inspiration from my design team colleagues. This challenge is open for a week, until Friday 3rd September. Have fun, I really look forward to seeing what amazing cards we receive!

Steampunk Robin

Jenny's theme choice for the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week is Birds.

 

The card above is not the one I meant to make at all! I was all set, and had started, a card using the very pretty bird bauble stamps from Tina Cox for Clarity. However, when on holiday I'd found this steampunk Christmas stamp set, which I couldn't resist. So I decided to play with this while the other card dried - and ended up having such fun I finished this one instead!

I stamped the bird first, and heat embossed with a mixture of black and copper. I then masked this and stamped the tree, heat embossing partially in gold and partially in silver.

Masking the bird again, I brushed some colour (fossilised amber and vintage photo distress oxide) into the background. I then over stamped with other stamps from the set, as well as a cog background I already had, in potting soil archival ink and other distress oxides.

I sponged some vintage photo around the bird (using the mask still) to give a drop shadow.

I coloured the bird with distress oxides and a water pen. Rusty hinge was perfect, and apt, for his chest, with green and red for the holly to give a festive touch. The rest was various browns, used alone and mixed, and with black soot, to give a variety of shades. I also used the water pen to activate the oxides in the background within the tree, to define it a bit more.

The sentiment is also from this set, I stamped and embossed in copper. It was getting a bit lost on the busy background, so I sponged antique linen oxide over the area to knock it back, then wiped the ink off the embossing.

To finish, I blended vintage photo around the outside, and swiped a black archival ink pad across the edges.

 

I am really rather fond of my steam punk robin, with his rusty chest. A bit different and quirky! And the set I think will be useful, some of the smaller stamps will be great for backgrounds.

 

 

 

So, I hope you're inspired to play along with our challenge. To see the fabulous cards from the rest of the design team, and share your card, visit us at the 52CCT blog. The challenge is open for a week, until Friday 27th August. Have fun!!

Baublicious

Jenny has chosen an unusual but very pretty colour combination for us at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week.

It took a little while to think what I wanted to do for this, and a bit of serendipity played a part.

The background uses an embossing folder, I saw a youtube of someone using this technique, which I haven't done for ages, so decided to have a play.

I didn't have an ink that I would call aqua (there was a bit of a discussion at home about what colour aqua was, how much green is in it!). So I blended distress oxides, mostly peacock feathers, with a bit of tumbled glass and bundled sage sponged on. Cracked postacio may have been a better green to use, with hindsight. I added the ink to the deboss side of the folder, and spritzed the card with water before running through the embossing machine. I had a few iterations, this was the one I was happy with - although the photo is doesn't show the touch of green there is in real life!

(You can see I also used a spray over an embossed panel, but haven't made that into a card yet. The spray was also a blend, of distress reinker colours.)

I was going to do a gel plate paint print for the rose pink, but then on holiday last week I treated myself to some pink alcohol inks, and a gold mixative (amongst other crafty things!). So it seemed rude not to use them for this colour challenge.

I used these, again blending the pinks to get a shade I liked, to make a background sheet. I used yupo paper and coated card as bases, to compare.

I preferred the piece on coated paper, although that's not what I ended up using!

Onto these, I stamped my baubles in versamark ink, and heat embossed with a light gold powder. Of course, yupo paper is plastic so doesn't handle heat well - it curled up a lot!

However, once I'd fussy cut them out, I preferred them, they had more dimension, and the card ones looked flat in comparison. So those are the ones I used. And the rest have gone in an envelope to be used another time!

I arranged on the base, then stuck down with red linetape, to cope with the plastic surface, curl and embossed base.

At this point I realised I hadn't cut my base to size, it was slightly large (as is my usual practice, in case I don't like a bit or the edge pools or something). Fortunately, it was only slightly too large, because the baubles weren't coming off! I trimmed the base slightly, and made my card blank a bit bigger than usual, and it worked out.

I sponged peacock feathers around the edge, then added the bauble strings with a gel pen and ruler. The gold was a bit too yellow next to the embossing, so I used a little silver as well, while the ink was still wet, mixing them on the page to get a more subtle gold colour.

So, there you have my rose pink, aqua and gold card. Unfortunately the photo has distorted the colours a little, and the texture on the base and baubles looks a lot better in real life! But this is such a pretty colour combination, I hope you can get a feel for it.

 

 

To play along with this challenge, visit us at the 52CCT blog. You have a week, until Friday 20th August, to enter your card into our gallery.

A sketch - or five

Jenny is our host for August at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. She has some great challenges lined up so I hope you'll be inspired to craft along and start, or build up, that Christmas card stash for the end of the year.

She has chosen a fun sketch for us.

As soon as I saw this, I thought of a bauble stamp I have. I was sure I'd blogged cards made with it before, but don't seen to have done so.

I got a bit carried away with this sketch so have a few cards to show you! Unfortunately the photos haven't come out particularly well.

 

This first is a CAS of a card I made for hubby last Christmas.

I stamped the image and embossed on black. I then added brushos, in alizarin crimson, yellow and emerald green, and spritzed with water.

Once dry, I used inktense pencils to bring out the baubles, and polychromo pencils to knock back the background in places, and add a drop shadow.

The sentiment is from Clarity's sticker sentiments.

For this one, I used the stamp platform and inked the stamp in distress oxides. I think I used aged mahogany, fossilised amber, and some green... can't remember which!

I spritzed the card and stamp with water before stamping, so the ink moved around. I repeated for more ink, then left to dry without taking the stamp out of the stamp platform.

Once the stamped image had dried, I over stamped with watering can grey archival ink. As the stamp hadn't been moved, it lined up perfectly. I am so happy with how this has come out!

The sentiment is stamped on a scrap of card with the same grey ink, which I've also used to edge the sentiment and card.

After the colour stamping for the card above, there was ink left on the stamp, so I stamped onto another piece of card, which I'd spritzed with water to activate the oxides. It gave a lovely soft print, although the ink didn't travel much.

I overstamped in the grey as above, but as there wasn't so much colour, I added in a watercoloured background with inktense. I liked the prettiness of the baubles so decided to colour the negative space. It's by no means great watercolouring but I'm still really pleased with this, it may be my favourite!

I put this onto a 5x5 card blank (the others are 6x6).

The other thought I had when looking at Jenny's sketch, which is inevitable for circles, was snowflakes!

I tried the same technique as above with the stamping platform and the bleeding ink. I did one with oxides and one with distress inks, to compare. There wasn't too much difference, and neither bled as much as I hoped. It may be the card I used for this one, although it is designed to take water, or maybe the stamps are too fine to hold enough ink.

I over stamped the snowflakes with versamark and heat embossed in white.

They looked quite lonely and plain on an expanse of white, and not in a good way! So I needed to add layers to these cards.

For the card above, I heat embossed the Merry Christmas at the bottom, then stamped the "Let it Snow" stamp in archival, with shades of blue and second, third and fourth generation. I then smooshed through blue inks on the mat. 

For the card below, I stamped the Let It Snow sentiment in archival cornflower blue, then heat embossed a lovely background word stamp over the rest of the card, masking the snowflakes and sentiments, before smooshing.

 

The snowflakes had sunk back a lot, so I sponged more oxide over these and the Merry Christmas sentiment, and spritzed with water, to make the embossing pop out.

I edged with blue and mounted on DL cards.

The photos of these are particularly bad, the camera hasn't coped with the mottled background! They are quite soft but pretty, with delicate detail that doesn't show in the photos.

 

So, there are my efforts using the sketch. I hope that, together with my design team collegues on the 52CCT blog, I have inspired you to play along.

This challenge is open for a week, until the 13th August.

Enjoy!!