Golden moon

Tracy has chosen an unusual colour combination for us at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown this week.

It took me a while to think of how to use these together to make a Christmas Card without getting dreary - any two I could do but not the three! Then I thought of the art of a friend of ours, Bridget Davies. She often uses gold leaf to surround her figures. I don't begin to aspire to her standard, but that gave me the idea for the gold background, which became the sky, even if I'm using paint rather than real gold!!

I created the moon first, using my round petite gel plate. I brayered on hickory smoke distress oxide, then flicked splashes of grey brusho.

I die cut a round paper mask for the moon and held it in position while I sponged on the gold paint. This gave a lovely crisp circle, much more than the gel plate had; I went over the edge of the gel printed circle.

The sleigh and trees I didn't originally intend to emboss, but the ink didn't stamp consistently across the paint and ink. This solved the problem - thank goodness I was using my stamp platform, I had to emboss twice to get the strong black.

The words across the sky are second generation black stazon, as I was stamping on paint. I held the mask in place again, although it slipped once - I don't think it is too noticeable, although I was very annoyed at the time!

I mounted on black card then onto a 6x6 card blank.

This is an unusally elegant card for me! I really quite like my gold background, the drama of the black against it, and the mottled detail on the moon (which you can't really see in the photo).

So now it's your turn to play with these colours - I can't wait to see the imaginative interpretations you come up with! The challenge is open for a week, until Friday 18th June. Check out the rest of the Design Team inspiration and share your card on the 52CCT blog.