Beauty of the Season

Happy Sunday!  It's me Shari, and I'm still in a festive mood, even though another Christmas season has come and gone.  I don't really consider the entire holiday season over until the New Year, so please bear with me as I get one more Christmas card in before the clock strikes midnight-in 4 days!!

 

I'm using images from our Toy Emporium, Snowy Woods and Midwinter stamp sets to make, what may be, my favorite Christmas card I've made this year.  I'm also using the Doily Die from ODBD as a large snowflake to frame this darling Christmas girl. 

 



I started by making a master board--I used the snowflakes from our Snowy Woods set and stamped them onto water color paper with white pigment ink, then I heat embossed with white embossing powder. 

I'm going to use Ultramarine Blue Color Burst to bring those embossed snowflakes to life. 

I spritzed the paper with water, then squeezed the bottle of Color Burst over the wet surface, spritzed a little bit more water to activate the CBs even more and let them do their wondrous CB thing!  When I was happy with the color, I rolled a roll of paper towels over the surface, then heat set. 

This was such an easy master board to make, I made a second one that I ended up using for another Christmas card project. 

This is a close-up of how the heat embossed snowflakes resisted the Color Burst.  I just love how those CB crystals concentrate into these pools of deep blue color--Sooo pretty & soooo Wintery!!

I cut pieces of the snowflake master board to use as a background and ran through my sewing machine to add a pretty silver stitched border. I layered the card base with a piece of black card stock, then ran through my sewing machine to add the zig-zag stitched border.

I stamped, what I'm calling the Christmas girl, from our new Toy Emporium stamp set, onto white card stock with Jet Black Archival and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I fussy cut her and mounted her onto the foiled 'snowflake' doily with foam dots.  I love the detail of this Doily Die--it really does look like a delicate snowflake!

The quote is from our Midwinter set and I stamped it onto tissue paper and carefully fussy cut with my finger knife.  I adhered onto the background with matte Decou-Page and heat set.

For a little additional sparkle to the background, I added several clear sequins around the word bands with Diamond Glaze.

I tied a messy bow with seam binding and hot glued onto the card then added the snowflake charm with a couple of jump rings. 

The snowy backdrop is courtesy of a snow storm that came in two days before Christmas Eve.  I ran outside between flurries and was able to get these beautiful outside shots.  I have the card sitting on a piece of cotton batting, so that it wouldn't sink down into the snow!! 

Thanks so much for joining me here at Artistic Outpost today!  The next time I have a posting here will be Next Year!!  That sounds so far away, but the New Year is just 5 short days away--then it's 2016!!  So, until then--Have a Safe and Happy New Year!! 


Designer:  Shari Trumbull
Ain't That Artsy Fartsy