Warm Holiday Greetings

The challenge for Thursday in Catch the Bug's "Christmas in July" series this week was a photo challenge:

I must admit, I was stumped by this when I first saw it. Even though I live in Texas, where we've had a white Christmas only once that I can remember in the past 30+ years, isn't Christmas supposed to be snowy? So I looked through my Bugaboo images, and found this one. The snowman is made from marshmallows, so the idea of toasted marshmallows came to me!

To begin, I chose Operation Write Home's Sketch #166:

I rotated the sketch 90 degrees counterclockwise, used the embellishment area for my greeting, and replaced the two panels behind the focal piece with one.

I printed my image on a piece of Strathmore Mixed Media Paper that I'd cut to the size in the sketch. I colored it with Inktense pencils, using a damp paintbrush to blend the colors. Rather than snow, I gave the snowman grass to stand on. I even thought the snowflakes in the image could be sweat droplets! After I finished the coloring, I set that aside to dry.

For the background, I decided to use a resist technique I'd learned in Camp Scrap. I taped the "Rays" layering stencil by Tim Holtz over another piece of Mixed Media Paper, and spread Liquitex Gloss Super Heavy Gel that I'd colored with Wild Honey Distress ink over it. After that dried, I blended Broken China Distress ink over the panel. Where I'd put the gel medium, it resisted the blue. Unfortunately (without really thinking), I blended where the sun would be with blue as well, so when I'd finished inking, I cut a piece of sunshine patterned paper (from my scrap stash) into a semi-circle to cover that up. I also trimmed 1/2" off the side of the panel, and added a strip of that same patterned paper behind that.

I stamped the greeting (stamp set name unknown) in Hero Arts Pool ink on a scrap of Mixed Media Paper, then die cut it with one of the "Stitched Tags" by Pretty Pink Posh. I then inked around the perimeter with Spiced Marmalade Distress ink.

After matting the background on a piece of navy cardstock, I glued down my focal panel and greeting. Because of the uneven thickness on the background, I set the panel under a book to dry, to make sure the glue stayed in contact with both the background & focal panel. Finally, after it had dried for a couple of hours, I mounted the completed card front to a white A2 card base.

I'm also entering this in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Monday "Anything Goes"
Live Love Cards July "Masking"