A Christmas Card Using Elusive Images Stamps

I loved this challenge from Glenda Waterworth - why would I not - to make a Christmas card (my favorite kind of card) using Elusive Images Stamps (my favorite make of stamps) - what more could a stamp junkie want? The stamp I chose to use is a beautiful floral spray featuring Christmas Roses with Holly and Ivy foliage, it's one of the stamps that comes on the Elusive Images "Christmas Fusion" Themeplate.

I stamped and embossed my image using gold fine detail EP, then painted it with Twinkling H2Os, allowing the white and pink paints to bleed a little into each other on the flower petals, I then mounted this onto gold foiled card. I had already selected some deep green card stock which I got in The Paper Mill Shop and a backing paper from the Artylicious "Season's Greetings" CD which carries a beautiful story of how the Christmas Rose came to be.

After edging my paper with a Gold Sakura Pentouch Pen I applied the papers to my card along with a co-ordinated Greeting from the Season's Greetings CD. Finally the finishing touches - I stamped and embossed my Christmas Rose stamp again, this time only stamping the middle bit as all I wanted was the roses. Once they were painted with the H2Os I cut them out and mounted them on foam pads as an embellishment for the front of the card and then added an organza bow below the greeting.

Oh, I should add, I used the snapshot tool in Adobe to lift the papers into my graphics programme so I could tweak the brightness and colour saturation of the paper a little - in my head I had a very exact idea of the colour I wanted and the paper as it printed was just a tad too dark.

And now that's another Christmas card I can add to my tally for Fab's Big Christmas Challenge - if you have been reading my blog you may recall I decided to attempt the "nutters" challenge this month and try to have 6 Christmas cards made before the 25th of July.

Brrrrrr......Freezing

I am still working on the "nutters" challenge for Fab's Big Christmas Challenge this month. As June is the sixth month Fab's "nutter's" challenge for June is to make not just one Christmas card as is required for the regular challenge, but six! Not sure if I will manage all six, but every card I do make just now means less pressure for me at the end of the year. Last year I found that the pressure to make enough Christmas cards was actually taking away a lot of the pleasure in making, so I am not too worried if I don't manage all 6 this month so long as I am enjoying making the ones I do make. I will be that much closer to having all the cards I need for Christmas 2008 ready in plenty of time. If you haven't started making your Christmas cards yet, why not join in with Fab's challenge, you don't have to go for the "nutter's" one, for the regular challenge all you need to do is make a single Christmas card - and you never know you might find yourself in festive mood and make more - not a bad thing to have some cards made nice and early if you always need a lot of hand made cards for family and freinds at Christmas.

Fortunately I found some more inspiration in another challenge this week. Daring Card Makers Challenge is entitled "Brrrrrr.......Freezing" and the brief is to make a card that is inspired by images, colours, embellishments - anything that makes you think of feeling cold and reminds you of winter. Anyhow here is my "chilly" card!

The Snowman stamp is from Visible Image and has been stamped in Black Archival Ink then coloured with Prismacolor pencils. The shimmery snowflake background was made by sponging blue dye based ink onto white card stock the spritzing with Gimmmer Mists. After it dried I stamped the snowflake image in Adirondack Dye ink (Denim) then spritzed some more with the Glimmer Mists. The photo really does not do justice to the gorgeous icy shimmer from those Glimmer Mists. Finally I edged the both the Snowman image and the background with a silver Sakura Pentouch pen.

The card itself is some pearlescent card stock that I picked up at the SECC in March and I have used some of the offcuts of my background to punch out small snowflakes and to make the text message. The Let It Snow text was also stamped with the Adirondack Denim ink.