Thinking of You at Christmas

The challenge theme this week at Merry Monday has been "Kraft and Red." Except for the addition of gold, I kept to that color scheme for my card.

I got the design for my card from the current sketch challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown (which I'm also entering). I basically stuck with the sketch for this card. I had intended to make this at least a mostly one-layer card. I masked off the tree shape on an A2-size kraft panel. I stamped several of the larger flower image from WPlus9's "Be Merry Florals" set with Lawn Fawn Yeti pigment ink. I repeated the stamping with Altenew Ruby Red and Memento Rhubarb Stalk & Lady Bug inks, going right over the white stamping. I also stamped the smaller flower with Versamark ink, and heat embossed with Ranger Red Embossing Tinsel. Finally, I added dots in the empty spaces with the smallest of the "Bokeh Dots" stamps from Essentials by Ellen. I heat embossed those with Ranger Princess Gold embossing powder. To finish the tree, I colored in the trunk with a brown Tombow marker.

In doing all this stamping--especially with the pigment ink--I suppose it was inevitable to get an ink smudge on my panel! I tried to remove it with my sanding block, but doing that also "bleached" the cardstock a bit, so it was obvious where I had sanded. But I was not about to start over! So I found a Lawn Fawn "Small Stitched Oval" die that was large enough to surround the tree, but still cut away that bleached spot, and die cut my kraft panel.

For the greeting, I used one from Hero Arts' "Very Merry Christmas" stamp set (discontinued). I stamped it in Versamark on a piece of burgundy cardstock, heat embossed with gold, & cut that into a banner. I embossed a panel of red cardstock with the "Plaid" embossing folder from Sizzix/Tim Holtz. I glued my oval to that with liquid glue, and glued down my greeting banner. Finally, I used the same liquid glue to adhere my panel to a white A2 card base.