Gingerbread smiles

For Goga's theme challenge at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, she has chosen "Gingerbread Man".

I made a gingerbread man card a few years ago for a "food and drink" challenge. For that I drew my own gingerbread man, I think I've got my template somewhere still, but in the meantime I've acquired a die. It's not my usual sort of thing, so I thought I'd better make use of it here otherwise it'll just languish in the folder.

So the first thing was to cut the die from kraft card.

I coloured white card with sharpies for the bowties - I couldn't decide on the colours so made a few!

To mount them I stamped the diamond from Sam's shape stamps, and cut out with my gullotine.

Then the background, my favourite bit!

I wanted to go typically Christmassy, so got out the mowed lawn and barn door distress oxides (green and red). Squidging them onto my mat, I spritzed and used an acrylic block to break them up and apply them to the card, then dipped the card onto the mat. I added the two colours separately, drying in between layers, so they didn't mix and give me mud.

The green was a bit bright, and I still had a lot of white, so I used my pine needles distress ink - I don't have that colour in oxides, and wanted the transparency anyway.

And then added a bit more red!

I cut this down to size for a 6x6 card.

For a border, I used a mandala stamp by Tina from Claritystamp, stamped over the edge repeatedly (using versafine black). I also edged the whole piece with a black sharpie.

For the sentiment, I chose a script style, and stamped in black. I then highlighted with a white gel pen. I love the snowy feel of this. And where I'd gone over the black too much, I went back over with a fine black drawing pen.

And then I thought I was done. But when I looked at my photos, the gingerbread men looked a bit flat and stuck on.

So I went back in with the drawing pens - sepia for the eyes and buttons, and grey around the edges for a bit of a drop shadow to ground.

Still not sure I'd have added the gingerbread men if it wasn't the challenge theme, but they are kinda cute, and it's a bit different for me. And the die has been used!




To share your take on a gingerbread man card, click through to 52CCT. I'm sure there will be some really lovely images out there to be used! You have until Friday 22nd March to enter.