Out of the ordinary

It's time for our theme challenge at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown.

Myrna has chosen an unusual but inspired theme:

I love this idea, and so many ways to be "non traditional".

I went for an animal not usually associated with Christmas, as well as a non Christmassy colour scheme.

I started with a Clarity stencil, and brushed through mustard seed distress ink.

To this base, I added distress oxides. I applied the ink to an acrylic block, spritzed with water then dabbed onto the card. I dried between colours. I used spiced marmalade, picked raspberry, twisted citron and broken china.

I had a splodge of the orange, so spritzed the card directly to  disperse it - and lost all trace of the stencil underneath!

So I put the stencil back into position and went through with fossilised amber distress oxide.

I wanted more definition, so put the card through the embossing machine with the stencil to emboss the swirls. I also stamped through the stencil with a dotty texture stamp, in spiced marmalade, to add more detail to the swirls.

I cut the card down to size, and added broken china distress oxide round the edge to frame, with a sponge.

For the topper I die cut a flamingo from the same card. The boots and scarf came with it, the hat I borrowed from another set.

I coloured all the pieces with distress oxides and a water pen.

I used a pen for the eye.

I also die cut a sentiment, and coloured in the same way.

To construct, I used foam pads to raise the flamingo, and foam tape to attach the whole to a 6x6 card blank.

The flamingo doesn't stand out so much in the photos, it does in real life!

I think this is really fun - and I had fun making it. Partly because I was sharing the table with hubby doing lego and daughter playing, so it was a lovely family afternoon.


Hubby says this is a traditional Floridean Christmas card - which just goes to show! As we aren't in Florida, I hope this still counts as non traditional.

To join in with this fabulous challenge, head to the 52CCT. You have until Friday 27th July to enter.