Swirling skies

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.