Be Merry

The current My Favorite Things Color Challenge is to use Lush Lagoon, Smooth White, Limelight, and After Midnight. I don't have those exact colors, so I substituted Distress inks in Mermaid Lagoon, Twisted Citron, & Chipped Sapphire. I used white cardstock for my greeting for the white, and added in Black Soot Distress ink as a neutral.

I got the inspiration for my card from Christmas Card Throwdown's current challenge, which is to use the Joseph's Coat technique. For the design, I used Sketch #SC606 at Splitcoaststampers.com.

I began by inking a panel of Strathmore Mixed Media paper with my Distress inks (minus Black Soot). I just kind of splotched the color on, making sure to get plenty of each hue on my panel. I did go a little lighter with the Chipped Sapphire, after I discovered it created kind of a muddy grey when it overlapped the Twisted Citron.

After I had fully inked my panel, I let it air dry for several hours. Then I used My Favorite Things "Sophisticated Snowflakes" stamp set (discontinued) to stamp several snowflakes in Versamark ink over the panel. Since I couldn't see the stamping, with Versamark being a clear ink, as I went I sprinkled on Ranger Clear Super Fine Detail embossing powder on each image. After I had stamped all the snowflakes, I melted the powder with my heat tool.

I inked over the whole panel with Black Soot. Wherever I had stamped & heat embossed the snowflakes resisted the ink, basically preserving the color underneath. After I had added a few "coats" of Black Soot, I buffed over the panel with a dry paper towel, to remove the excess ink off the embossed snowflakes.

To cut the curve in my panel, I used a flexible ruler & pencil to sketch out the curve on the back side. To keep the snowflake design looking continuous, I made sure to draw two parallel curves so I could cut a slice out. Then I used scissors to cut along the lines.

For the greeting, I used the long "be merry" from Lawn Fawn's "Peace Joy Love" stamp set (discontinued). I traced the curved line from one of my main panel pieces onto a piece of white cardstock. I used that as a guide to help me curve my greeting onto the door of my MISTI stamping tool. Finally, I stamped it in Ranger Cobalt Archival ink (another substitute for After Midnight) and erased my pencil line.

I adhered my greeting panel to a white A2-size card base. I used craft foam & double-sided tape to pop up my snowflake pieces above & below the greeting, and this card was done! A fairly easy card to pull together overall, but with a lot of impact.