Joy to the World

The current challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown is a Tic-Tac-Toe Stash challenge. I chose the diagonal line with the Nativity, Patterned paper, & Embossing (heat embossing, in my case) squares.

I had an alcohol ink background that I'd done for a different card, that had not turned out at all as I'd intended. It's been sitting on my desk for a few weeks now, and I finally decided to use it for this card. The blue alcohol inks had gotten rather dark in places, & I was concerned my image wouldn't show up well. So I spritzed the panel with isopropyl alcohol & daubed it with a paper towel to remove some of the ink. To my delight, it worked really well! I then heat embossed one of the images from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' "O Holy Night" stamp set with Wow Perissa embossing powder. I had to be very careful with the heat embossing, since my background is Yupo paper, which is rather sensitive to heat. Thankfully, I was able to melt the embossing powder without warping the paper too much. After the embossing had cooled, I die cut it with a circle die. I cut another circle from white cardstock, & adhered my Yupo circle to that, just to provide more stability & flatten it.

I used the "Big Rays" stencil from A Colorful Life Designs to stencil my background. I inked with Fossilized Amber Distress ink onto a light yellow cardstock. When I removed the stencil, I felt the contrast between the inked & uninked areas was a bit too stark, though. So I blended over the whole panel with just the ink that was left on my blending foam. That knocked the contrast back by darkening between the rays slightly. Then I die cut the panel with the stitched rectangle from Mama Elephant's "Femme Frames" set (discontinued).

After I glued my focal circle in place, I stamped my greeting (from the same set) in Lawn Fawn's Blue Jay ink. I cut a panel of patterned paper from Graphic45's "Christmas Carol" 6x6" pad with the largest of the "Large Stitched Rectangle" dies from Lawn Fawn. I used that to mat my main panel, & then adhered it to a white card base.

I'm also entering this card in Double Trouble's "Let's Get A-Round to It" challenge.