Merry & Bright Stars

Christmas Card Throwdown's current challenge theme is a color palette of kraft, yellow, & gold. Not exactly traditional holiday colors, no matter what holiday you celebrate! But I was able to incorporate all 3. I did add a little purple, just for a pop of contrast, but otherwise, only used their palette.

I used the star & one of the greetings from Hero Arts' "Joy to the World" stamp set for my card. I stamped the greeting on a scrap of Essentials by Ellen 40 lb. vellum, and heat embossed it with Ranger Super Fine Detail Gold embossing powder. Then I fussy-cut around the greeting.

For the background, I cut a piece of Strathmore Smooth Bristol paper to 4.25x5.5". I stamped the star from "Joy to the World" all over the panel with Versamark ink. Periodically I sprinkled on gold embossing powder, just to keep track of where I'd already stamped. After I finished stamping, I melted the embossing powder with my heat gun. I used a yellow Zig Clean Color Real Brush marker and my water brush to color in the stars. I added a bit of color at the center with the marker, skipping every other section in each star. Then I spread the color with my water brush, carrying the ink over to the sections I hadn't applied color to.

When the background had dried, I trimmed off a 1-3/8"-wide strip from one side, and trimmed another 1/8" from the edge of the wider panel, to give me a small gap. I adhered both panels to a strip of kraft cardstock, letting that peek through the 1/8" gap between them.

I die cut a snowflake from yellow shimmer cardstock, using a Spellbinders "2013 Snowflake Pendant" die (discontinued). Because it didn't really stand out against the background, I die cut another from purple cardstock (since purple is the complement of yellow), and layered it behind the shimmer one, slightly offset, to create a shadow. I glued that to my card front.

I cut a 1/2" wide strip of kraft cardstock, trimmed the ends into wonky V-shapes, & glued that on top of the snowflakes. After running my greeting through my Xyron Sticker Maker, I adhered it to the card, above the kraft strip. Finally, I mounted my card front to a white A2 card base.

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

A Blog Named Hero: "Watercolor"
a2z Scrapbooking's May Challenge: "Sentiment Focus"