Season's Greetings

Our Daily Bread Designs has been having a sketch challenge this month. They posted the following card sketch, and asked participants to create a card following the sketch.

I began by die cutting a circle from 140 lb. watercolor paper, using a Spellbinders "Standard Circles SM" die. I stamped the "Chickadee" image from ODBD on that in Colorbox Putty Archival dye ink. I also stamped a greeting from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' "Christmas Joy" set in Versamark, and heat embossed it with Wow White Pearl embossing powder. Then I colored the bird with my Inktense pencils, using a damp paintbrush to pick up the color from my pencils & apply it to the paper. For the background, I watercolored with Distress inks in Faded Jeans, Blueprint Sketch, & Chipped Sapphire. Then I set that aside to dry.

I die cut the largest of Spellbinders' "Splendid Circles" from tan cardstock, glued it to a piece of light blue cardstock, and used scissors to cut the blue around the perimeter of the die cut. I then inked around the outside edge with Pumice Stone Distress ink, just to give it a bit more dimension. When my focal panel had dried, I adhered it to this die cut. I also cut a piece of tan patterned paper from Graphic 45's "Christmas Carol" 6x6" paper pad into a square, and inked the edges with Pumice Stone before adhering my circle over it.

For the background, I cut a piece of paper from "Christmas Carol" to 4-1/8x5-3/8". I matted that with more of the light blue cardstock that I'd used to back my circle. I adhered my focal panel in place. I punched a strip of the tan patterned paper I'd used for the square with Fiskars' "Scallop Sentiment" punch, inked the edges with Pumice Stone, then adhered that to my background. I did a "faux" bow, following this tutorial; then threaded metallic embroidery floss through a button, and glued that to the bow. Finally, I mounted my card front to a white A2 card base, and added Baby Blue Liquid Pearls to the scallops on my strip.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Work It Wednesday: "Use Stamps"
Through the Craft Room Door: "Anything Goes"
Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge: "Anything Goes"