Merry Christmas Poinsettia

The current Christmas Card Throwdown challenge is to use the colors white, deep purple, & gold. I created this card using a background technique taught by Tiffany Solorio during the online Cardmaker Success Summit event.

I cut a piece of Strathmore Mixed Media paper to letter size, & used Dusty Concord, Seedless Preserves, Blueprint Sketch, & Wilted Violet Distress inks with the ink smooshing technique. I smooshed the inks onto my non-stick craft mat, spritzed with water, & pressed my paper into the color. I dried this with my heat tool, & repeated until I'd built up the depth of color I wanted. I also used Crushed Grape & After Midnight Dylusions sprays to add a little more intense color. I spritzed the panel with water droplets, and dried that with my heat tool again for some lighter spots. Finally, I splattered gold metallic watercolors all over the background. Once everything had dried, I cut the sheet into four A2-size panels. I cut 1/8" off 2 sides of the one that I chose for this card, so I would end up with a 1/16" border on all sides when I adhered it to my card base.

I die cut the flower & leaf pieces with the "Blooming Poinsettia" die set from Poppystamps, all from white cardstock. I splattered them with a pale gold metallic watercolor, just for a bit of added interest. I glued the flower pieces together, adding glue just in the middle of each layer, so the petals could fluff up a bit. For the flower center, I used 3 dots I'd made previously with Pale Gold Nuvo Crystal Drops, adding them with glue. I glued the center of the flower to the card panel, & added the leaves underneath, applying glue only to the ends that tucked under the flower.

For the greeting, I die cut Simon Says Stamp's "Merry Christmas" from gold metallic cardstock that I'd backed with Stick It adhesive. To keep the die cut from getting distorted while I applied it to my panel, I left it in the die. I removed the adhesive release paper from the back, placed the die on my panel, & used my craft pick to poke through the holes in the die. This stuck the words on my panel just enough so they stayed put, while still allowing me to adjust them a bit if I needed to. After I removed the die, I used my Teflon bone folder to burnish the greeting in place. Finally, I adhered my card front to a white card base.

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

Dies R Us Challenge #173: "Anything Goes using Any Brand of Die that DRU Sells" (used Poppystamps die set)

613 Avenue Create July Challenge: "Anything Goes" (not playing the twist)