Hot chocolate - subtly

For her theme challenge, Netta has chosen "Cocoa".

This gave me a challenge as I didn't have anything with a mug or similar on - I went through all my stamps in case one had snuck in, but nothing!

So I had to take a different tack. I wrote out a Christmas tree in Word, with the words "Hot chocolate, cold snow, warm hugs". This took a bit of fiddling with font sizes but I think it came out okay - I'm sure there are tools to make it easy if I'd looked. I then printed it out - at this point I thought maybe fewer rows woud have been better, but just wanted to get it done as I was running late again!

I brushed antique linen distress oxide ink around the outside, then stamped holly sprigs and sprays around it, in vintage photo, victorian velvet, bundled sage and fossilised amber.

They over whelmed the tree a bit, so I masked the tree and spritzed with water to soften. As I was working on printer card, I was a bit nervous how it would take the water, but it held up okay.

I could have coloured in the same  inks, but got a new set of inktense pencils for Valentine's Day (yes, I have a wonderful hubby!) so wanted to play with those.

I sponged vintage photo around the edge.

To knock the holly back more and frame the tree, I die cut a lattice. This is one of my Tim Holtz Christmas dies, I'm getting so much use from this set! I cut four and arranged them in each corner, overlapping. I didn't need to match them up perfectly, they still looked good.

Final step, I ran the vintage photo ink pad around the outside, then mounted on a 6x6 card blank.

I didn't really have a plan when I printed the base of this card out, but I actually really like where it's ended up - I think it's very pretty.

And more or less meets the challenge theme.


To join in and share your Cocoa/Hot Chocolate themed card, pop onto the 52CCT blog. There is also lots of amazing inspiration for the other design team members. You have until Friday 21st February. Happy crafting.