Thinking of You at Christmas

Ellen Hutson is currently having their November Pin-Sights challenge. They posted the following mood board, as inspiration for participants' projects:

I decided, due to my need for holiday cards, and despite the lack of "regular" Christmas colors in the photos, to make a Christmas card.

I used one of the lessons in May Flaum's "Tried & True Card Designs" class as the inspiration for my design. Basically, the idea is to create a wreath. When I saw the lesson in class, I knew almost immediately which set I wanted to try: Essentials by Ellen's "Bokeh Dots." I've seen holiday wreaths made entirely of ornament balls, and wanted to recreate that look on my card.

I used 3 of the solid dots in the set, with Distress inks in Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Mermaid Lagoon, and Tea Dye, as well as Delicata Silvery Shimmer pigment ink. I cut a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper to 3.75x5", and lightly drew a circle on it, using a Spellbinders circle die as a template. I had initially thought, since May did in her lesson, that I would use water during the coloring of my wreath, which is why I used watercolor paper. In the end, I didn't do any watercoloring, but there was no harm done from my paper choice anyway. I stamped the dots around my circle outline, trying to keep a balance of colors & sizes, and keep a fairly circular shape. It's really not quite as easy as you might think!

When I had finished stamping the wreath, I turned to the greeting. So that I wouldn't cover up my wreath too much, I decided to use a vellum strip. I stamped my greeting, from Hero Arts' "Merry Christmas Message," in Versamark ink, and heat embossed it with Ranger Silver embossing powder.

I positioned the strip in place, and folded the ends to the back of my panel, without applying any adhesive. Once I had the placement worked out, I applied tiny dots of glue to the back of the strip, hiding them behind the embossed words, and adhered it to my panel. I also added glue to the ends behind my panel, and stuck them down. I then created a "faux bow," as demonstrated in this tutorial.

For the mat, I was again inspired by the look of a mat on one of May's cards. I cut a piece of white cardstock to 4.25x5.5", and painted along all 4 sides with a paintbrush and clean water. Then I tore the cardstock where I'd wet it, giving me a controlled ragged edge. Finally, I dried the cardstock with my heat tool, inked around the perimeter with Tumbled Glass, and adhered my main panel to it. I inked around the edges of another piece of white cardstock, cut to A2 size, with the Silvery Shimmer Delicata ink, and when that had dried, mounted my matted panel to that. I adhered that to a white A2 card base, and another holiday card is finished!