Rosi's choice for her theme challenge at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown is "Choral".
Anyone who knows my cards will know I love using musical notation, so this was a gift, but I had to give them the choral angle!
I started with some more of my shaving foam sheets from last week. These have a pale green which is actually a mix of the previous colours I used, but is similar to bundled sage, then I added lucky clover and seedless preserve. I love this combination!!!
I tried to choose three sheets with maximum contrast, so the next step worked.
I die cut squares from the sheets, one inside the other.
I then swapped the squares around to have a contrast. I was hoping the three sheets were sufficiently different to be able to mix and match, but the two darker ones looked very similar, so I ended up with this:
For the bottom set, I upped the contrast by over stamping the middle square. I used seedless preserve and a musical notation stamp.
As these colours are quite full on and rich, I just used black for the focal points.
The first is a Clarity stamp, perfect for this theme, with the music and words for "Deck the Halls". I stamped with versamark then heat embossed with black powder.
Unfortunately stamping across the joins in the layers made it a little uneven, I had to fill in with a black pen on the seams. But it is legible in real life, the contrast in texture with the background is more apparent than the photo shows.
For the other two cards, I used die cuts. I have two music dies, so out they came, then I went through my sentiment dies for ones that were Christmas lyrics. I'm not religious so didn't want the carols, but found two that fitted perfectly.
I bought this sentiment ages ago, I knew it would come in handy!
You can see the stamped music on this card. I know I say it a lot, but it shows better in real life!
No snowflakes this week for once, but I still got some snow in.
To share your 'Choral' themed cards with us, head over to the 52CCT blog. You have until Friday 24th May 2019 to join in. Have fun, I think we're going to get some great cards this week.
This week we have a colour challenge on the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. Rosi has chosen brown, silver and turquoise for us to play with.
For this I had a sesion with the shaving foam and made some backgrounds. I used peacock feather and walnut stain distress reinkers. I also added silver mica powder to see if that worked - but it didn't!
These three were just the start - I made a whole stash of prints in different colours, including rainbow prints for May's Berkhamsted Creative Challenge.
I used the top left and bottom prints as backgrounds, and the top right for die cutting. I also painted some card with silver paint, for die cuts.
I used my favourite Tattered Lace Merry Christmas die for the sentiment, then die cut snowflakes, holly and ivy to arrange around the outside.
They were edged in distress ink, then mounted on 6x6 card blanks.
This one, with the snowflakes, is very delicate and pretty. Snowflakes are my go-to answer for Christmas cards, they always work!
This darker background is a bit more rustic. I love this holly die, but always struggle with how to arrange it. Fortunately I remembered a trick I'm sure I've used before, and cut the ivy to go with it.
These are quite simple cards, although all the die cutting took a while - partly because I cut a lot more than I ended up using! They've gone in the stash, nothing is wasted.
To join in with our colour challenge, head over to the 52CCT blog, you have until Friday 17th May to enter.
Alison is our host for February on the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown. As always, we start the month with a sketch, and Alison has chosen a simple design to inspire us:
To make my first band across my card, I used the wee houses stamps from Clarity. I drew a guide line before stamping a row in permanent ink. Despite this, they ended up a bit higgledy piggledy.
I painted them with pebeo masking fluid to protect them. And then had a session with the distress reinkers making shaving foam backgrounds!
I love the green one, the blue one was a bit full on for me, so I knocked it back a bit by dry brushing with white gesso.
I rubbed off the masking fluid to reveal the white houses.
Some of the ink lifted too, so I went over with a black drawing pen where needed.
I cut down to size, I couldn't get rid of the really wobbly houses as they were in the middle, so just made sure the houses were balanced on each side.
For the second band across, I used Centura pearl hint of silver card for a bit of shimmer. I cut two narrow strips, then die cut words and snowflakes to build up the pattern, and adhered to the card with wet glue.
These went on a 6x6 card blank.
This wasn't meant to be a literal picture, but the shaving foam pattern does suggest a swirling snow storm, very appropriate for the current UK weather!
This one is more delicate, I love the pattern - the shaving foam is quite random though, you can't really control what you're going to get.
To join in with this week's challenge, head over to the 52CCT, you have until Friday 8th February to join in. I'm really intrigued to see what you all do with this sketch.
Time for another throwback post - I'm trying to catch up and post more in January - I missed yesterday but doing well apart from that!
My friend and craft teacher Angela moved house last year, so of course I made her a card. I used the same Lavinia stamp for this new home card last year.
The background here is a shaving foam piece, using bundled sage distress reinker. I blended the same colour around the edge to frame it.
I inked up the stamp with different colours of distress oxide in different areas, then stamped. With a water pen, I blended out the colours to fill the house. I also pressed out distress oxide ink onto the craft mat to pick up with the water pen and colour more. The colours are quite random, and bright - I'm enjoying the vibrancy of the oxides compared to the more muted effect of the original distress inks. Although the colours are the same, the opacity makes them brighter. Plus I have more of the brighter colours in oxides I think
Using torn paper as a mask, and the water pen with ink, I added green either side of the house to ground it, and a touch of yellow to suggest a path.
The words were also inked with a mix of distress oxides. I have the alphabet stamps now, so "new" came from "news" again, but I used individual letters for "home".
I like the softness of this card, both in the background and the diffused colour of the inks. I hope Angela liked it too!
I wanted to have another play with the current sketch challenge from the Christmas Card Throwdown.
Something completely different from last week's card. No step by step pictures this week I'm afraid, ran out of time a bit!
I started with the background - I got the shaving foam out and had a play in the week. I got a bit carried away - I meant to make a few backgrounds for a variety of cards I have to make at the moment, but then got into it and ended up with 24 I think! And ink stained fingers that haven't 100% gone more than two days later.
(If you don't know the shaving foam technique, there's a video here. Basically you use the shaving foam as a carrier to do marbling with dye inks - distress inks in my case.)
So I have my pretty, frosty blue background, now I want to add some snowflakes. I have reversed the sketch in a way, rather than the green ribbon being in front, I've put the grey rectangles forward.
I got out my groovi kit and parchment for this. I haven't used it for ages, despite my good intentions at the start of the year. However, it's been out this week as I had to make 2 sympathy cards (no-one's favourite type of card) and the softness of parchment works so well for those.
I drew my outlines using the square grid plate, then embossed the dots just inside them using the square grid plate. I then filled each piece with snowflakes from one plate (not sure what it's called).
Some new snowflake plates have just come out with piercing grids to match; although I'd said I wouldn't buy more groovi till I've used what I have more, I am sorely tempted by these!
I didn't colour or do white work, just left the delicate snowflakes as white lines - so simple but so pretty.
I used plain parchment for these, but for the sentiment I got out some blue - I've not really used this before, but I won a pack at the Clarity Open Day in June, so had to try it. The first piece I did, I went on the wrong side, to got a pale blue line instead of white - still pretty but not what I wanted, so I had to redo.
I embossed a line sentiment from a border plate, then framed with a line and dots as above.
The parchment was mounted onto the background with a tape pen, strategically placed behind the snowflakes and words, then the background went onto a 7x7 card base.
Soft and subtle, but ever so pretty.
Each time I do some groovi I resolve to do more. I don't have the time, patience or skill for lots of white work or pricking, but I still love the effects I get with the line art and colouring.
I hope this has inspired you to have a go with our sketch. To join in, head to the Christmas Card Throwdown. You have until midnight BST on Friday 15th September to enter.
You can also follow us on Facebook to see the design team inspiration.
Hubby and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary this week, and this is the card I made him. He likes bright, vibrant colours (and thinks a lot of my cards are too dull or washed out) so this was my response!
I was originally going to make this for the February Clarity challenge, which had the theme of Flower Power, but didn't get there in time!
I started with a shaving foam background. I used worn lipstick, mustard seed, barn door and a bit of bundled sage distress reinkers. This was the first print, so had the full impact of the colours. (I did lots more, some with stencils, so the stash is well topped up!)
On scraps of card, I stamped the silhouette from the butterfly and petals Clarity stamp set. I tried different distress inks - worn lipstick, picked raspberry, spiced marmalade, mustard seed and wild honey.
I decided to go with the picked raspberry and spiced marmalade, so stamped multiple of these.
I then added two of the pattern stamps, in black versafine, and cut them out.
I played with arranging them into flowers, and decided I needed a few more, as well as some leaves.
I didn't have the green I wanted for the leaves, so used mustard seed with second generation mowed lawn over the top. It gives more texture, too.
I arranged them onto the background, attached with small foam pads. The flower centres are the swirl from the centre of the swirly petal, stamped over mustard seed distress ink and cut out. The stems I drew on with a medium permanent marker.
I tore round the edges of the background to reduce it down to size (for an 8x8 card blank), and inked the torn edges with ripe persimmon. I stamped the happy anniversary stamp, again in versafine.
To highlight the words, I used a pink pen on one side and a white pen on the other.
For a mount, I used a pink sheet, and dragged the picked raspberry ink around the edge to brighten it. (I thought this would be a short cut to an intense colour, but I think a white card with the ink would have been brighter.)
I edged the pink card with a black sharpie, but it looked a bit flat. So I got out the white gesso, and a grid stamp from the Sheena Douglass distress stamp set. I stamped randomly in the gesso, and applied dots with my small groovi tool.
I used the same grid stamp on the insert and envelope (in mustard seed distress ink), along with the petal stamps in the picked raspberry and spiced marmalade.
To construct the card, I used foam tape between all the layers - I'm not going to have to post it, after all!
I do love the zesty brightness of this card. The random, shaving foam background is very happy making, and I like the simple, doodle style - flower power indeed!
