Celebrate This Christmas

My second card of the day actually has a fair few similarities to the first, but I think is still very different. It’s a Christmas card made as a response to the current Muse: ChristmasVisions. I’m also entering it to Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge and Christmas Challenge Extra, as well as Mod Squad‘s challenge to use foliage, and Addicted to Stamps‘ CAS challenge.

Muse: ChristmasVisions 60 by Kim Makortoff

The elements I wanted to recreate from the Muse card were the CAS look, the single layer, the layout (although I ended up changing my plan slightly) and the big, bold sentiment.

I started by stamping the flowers. I chose the particular big one because I thought it looked a bit like a poinsettia. The small one I chose because it was the best fit of the two small flowers in the set. I went for red for both, because well… Christmas!

Next came the fun part! I masked off my flowers at the bottom of the card, took the grass stamp and started stamping. My aim was to make sprigs of sorts, varying the shade of green between (but not within) each sprig. Initially I stamped as if I would be making a strip along the edge, as with the Muse card, but I soon realised that would look unbalanced as I only have the one flower at the top. So I bought my ‘sprigs’ up the side slightly – this way I could have the stamping be on opposite corners of the card to make it better balanced. I kept stamping with the grass until I was happy with the look, then flipped the card around to add the sprigs to the top.

Once I had my image all stamped I needed to do my sentiment. As I have bemoaned before, I have a serious lack of Christmas sentiments. (I have found a Christmas sentiment stamp set that seems very good – chock full of different sentiments that can be mixed and matched. It is very high on my to-buy list!) I ended up picking the sentiment I used from Altenew’s Super Script. It’s not strictly speaking a Christmas sentiment, but it also seemed appropriate for a Christmas card. It’ll do! I stamped that with black pigment ink and the card was finished!

This is another card that I’m very proud of. I love the depth of colour in the greenery – I think it gives a very realistic look. If I had a stamp positioner for my wooden stamps I would have restamped the flowers to get a better impression… That’s gone up my priority list since buying these stamps! I think I also could have stamped the sentiment a tiny bit lower and more to the left. But that’s a minor quibble. Also there is a smudge next to the sentiment… Oh well!