Frosty snowflakes

Our final Christmas Card Throwdown of the year is a bit different, as the big day approaches and things tend to get hectic for most people! We're asking you to pick a previous challenge from 2012 or 2013. The challenge archives are on the challenge site - over two years that gives you loads of choice, and loads of scope to be creative!

I have chosen to go back to April 2012 for a theme challenge

Although these cards could just about fit with the colour challenge from April 2013.

I had a session with the gel press plate a while ago, in preparation for another project which I really must blog soon!

I had these pieces left over.

This was a print in shades of blue, including metallic. I'd lifted paint off the gel plate with snowflake stamps before printing.

This was similar, but using a snowflake stencil to create a void in the print.

Finally, this was some of the card I stamped off on after I'd lifted the paint - so technically waste!

On the first two pieces, I covered the snowflake stencil in versamark and ran through the grand calibur. I then added silver embossing powder and heated. I wanted to fill the void in the second piece, but it was a bit wonky, and the void was larger than the stencil, so it looked a bit rubbish! But I think you can usually do something with most things. I tried adding ink to fill the white spaces around the embossing (which acted as a resist). I used salty ocean and chipped sapphire distress ink. And it looked amazing, if I do say so myself! It gave a really enchanted look. I wish I'd taken before and after photos, but as always I was pushed for time.

On the first piece, I added detail with a music score and a script stamp, using archival permanent ink over the acrylic paint (watering can and cobalt blue).

I cut each piece down to create smaller sections to go into aperture cards. I used the apertures, held over the larger piece, to work out which areas looked best and how to position them, before cutting down.

I wasn't organised enough to go and buy aperture cards, so I used dies to cut standard 5x7 and 6x6 cards. That meant I didn't have a third flap to cover the back of the sections and make them neat. Instead, I used an insert and fixed it at the edge as well as the centre of the front part of the card.

For the third piece (the waste!) I blended distress ink around the edge of the cut sections to create a large ombre, which again changed the cards from crisp to ethereal.




So from three pieces of card (and possibly some leftovers from other pieces, I can't remember exactly!) I made 8 beautiful cards!

If I were more organised (or didn't like playing and trying new things so much!) I'd do this more, making sets of cards together,

The snowflakes I've used for this are a stamp set from Clarity, which I go back to again and again. The stencil is also Clarity.

To join in with our final challenge of the year, head over to the Christmas Card Throwdown. You have until Friday 29th December to play - a long time at this busy time, and if you have any special cards you don't want to show until you've given them to the lucky recipient, you will still have a chance to post.

I look forward to seeing all the variants that you come up with from the challenges from the early years of the Christmas Card Throwdown.