I'm a bit late with my 52 Christmas Card Throwdown design team card this week. I planned to use our week's break last week to get ahead - ah well.
EK is hosting us this month, and she's chosen this sketch for us to play with:
As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to use the sunburst stencil from Clarity for the corner.
But I needed a background for it to go over. I started with green and cream distress oxides, three layers on the card. I then stamped over with a Clarity holly and ivy stamp, and paint in shades of red, green and cream.
Then it was time for the stencil, I sponged through with cream paint. I sponged dark red round the edge of the card, then ran a black ink pad round.
I cut a circle from cream zeta hammered card, and stamped a greeting from Clarity in black versafine.
Lastly it was doodle time - to emphasise the stencil, and around the edge, and to embellish the sentiment.
I'm not sure it's my favourite card ever, but it is quite Christmassy.
To join in with the challenge, head over to the 52CCT blog, you have until Friday 12th April to join in.
It's a theme week at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week, and the challenge is to make a card featuring candles or lanterns.
I knew straight away which stamp I was going to use as I only have one that fits the challenge! It's a candle stick stamp from the ClarityStamp New Design Club - the first one I got when I joined last year. (I do have some chinese lanterns, but they're not really Christmassy, or I could make candles quite easily, but I went with the stamp.) A couple of other people on the challenge have used this stamp too for the same reason.
I started by stamping on Clarity stencil card in gold pigment ink, so I could see the outline clearly, then coloured the flame and candle stick with a versa mark pen. I then heat embossed with gold, giving a solid fill for the flame and stick, with the candle left white.
I painted the candle with peacock feathers distress ink, and stamped a few sparkles in the background with the gold pigment ink.
I cut an oval frame from gold card, then cut the candle image to fit behind it. The base of the candle stick nested nicely onto the frame. I used foam pads to lift the frame above the image.
For the background I started with card a similar colour to the peacock feathers distress ink. Having admired an embossed background on another card in last week's challenge, I wanted to use one myself this week. I'd had an embossing folder in mind, but then thought to use the snowflake stencils from Clarity (another Christmas present).
I covered them in the gold pigment ink before embossing, then ran them through the Grand Calibur.
I repeated to fill in the last corner, then added gold mica powder, which clung to the pigment ink on the snowflakes. I love this effect, and the combination of the turquoise and gold.
At this point I had a "learning experience". I thought I'd blend a little peacock feather distress ink round the edge of the background to edge it and tie in with the candle. However, when I did this, I wiped off the mica powder from the edge! Oops. Next time I'll know, colour the edges first. So I had to go over the snowflakes with versa mark end and add the mica again.
I had thought about adding a sentiment, but I like the background so much I don't want to cover more of it. I just added thin strip of the gold card as a ribbon, mounting that and the candle on foam pads, and more gold card as a matt behind (I meant to cut something out of the centre first to be frugal, but forgot!) then mounted on a 5x7 card base.
I wasn't sure how this would turn out, the image isn't one I'm particularly drawn to, but I do quite like the simplicity of it used like this, and the colour. But it's the background that really makes this card for me. It isn't exactly what I had intended, but I think it looks gorgeously rich and opulent.
