Season's Greetings

Merry Monday Christmas Challenge blog's theme this week is to make a holiday card using plaid. I went into making this card knowing only that I wanted to stamp my own plaid pattern for a background. I took inspiration from this card I'd seen by Laura Bassen.

I cut a piece of white cardstock to 4.25x5.5". Using the "Basic Stripes" stamp set by Clearly Besotted & Simon Says Stamp's "Jumbo Stripes" set, I stamped my pattern. I used Hero Arts inks in Charcoal, Pale Tomato, Forever Green, and Lemon Yellow. After I finished, I looked at my creation. And I hated it! Mostly I hated my color choices, especially on the white background. So I stared at it for a few minutes, trying to decide if I really wanted to start over, or try and salvage it. I decided to try and salvage it. So, figuring it couldn't be any worse, I used Abandoned Coral Distress ink & a mini ink blending tool to add a layer of red all over it. It not only muted the white background, but I think helped to harmonize the colors as well. I'm happy with it, at least!

Once I had created my panel, I had to figure out what to do with it. So I went through my Christmas stamps, and found Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' "Christmas Joy" set. I discovered that the cardinal & smallest greeting fit perfectly inside the largest of Simon Says Stamp's "Stitched Circles" dies. So I die cut a circle from my plaid panel using that die.

I stamped the cardinal & "Season's Greetings" in Ranger Archival Coffee ink, on a panel I'd cut from Strathmore Bristol paper. I colored the cardinal & pinecone with my Zig Clean Color pens. Then, since I was planning to ink over the image to give it a vintage look, I figured I'd better make sure the Distress ink wouldn't smear the colors I'd just put down. So I hit the image with my heat tool, just to make sure it was thoroughly dry, and carefully started inking with Antique Linen. The colors didn't move, but I felt the ink wasn't quite dark enough. So I went over it again with Brushed Corduroy Distress ink. That got me the look I wanted. I colored in the pine needles with a green Clean Color pen, and that finished my panel.

I cut a piece of craft foam to go behind the plaid panel, and adhered it to the back of the cardstock with double-sided tape. I used the same tape to mount it to my image panel. Finally, I adhered my card front to a white A2 card base.

I'm also entering this card in Craft Your Passion's Challenge #294: "Anything Goes."