Christmas Wreath

If you’ve been following my Facebook or Instagram you’ll already be aware that I’ve been busy making card most of today in preparation for an upcoming video. I still wanted to make a card to share with you today though, and this is what I ended up creating. It was fairly simple to put together, and a nice relaxing process after fighting with editing a different video this evening. (That one should be up tomorrow morning, if all goes to plan! The other one perhaps later in the day tomorrow, but at the moment it looks like I may have to delay it…)

I started by creating my mat and focal panel. The mat is a piece of green mirror card cut to be half a centimetre shorter and narrower than the card base. I also cut away the centre so that I can use it on a future project. Doing this also reduces the weight of the card which is a particularly good idea when a card has a lot of layers, as they can get quite bulky. This particular piece of mirror card seems to have something strange going on with it – in several places it looks as though the foil is bubbling away from the card, and is not properly attached. It gives an interesting texture though! The focal panel is the same white card as the card base, and is another half centimetre less than the mirror card mat.

Next I put the focal panel into my MISTI and lined my stamps up onto it. The sentiment comes from Lawn Fawn’s Merry Messages and the wreath stamp is from The Cat’s Pajamas’ Poochie Christmas. I used MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink for stamping the sentiment. I wanted to do some very simple no-line colouring for the wreath, so I stamped it with Simon Says Stamp Barely Beige Dye Ink.

I then took my Yosoo alcohol markers and coloured the wreath. I used a dark green for the spine of the leaves, and a lighter green to fill out the leaves. I then took my darkest red to add in the dots around the wreath and also used it to fill in the bow. I added some depth and shading to the bow by using a couple of light green markers. Green is opposite red on the colour wheel, and so works well to darken red for shading. I use green for shading my reds because I have very few red markers.

I used my glue pen around the edge of the back of my focal panel and adhered it to the mirror card. I then used my tape runner to adhere the mat and focal panel to my card base. And that completed the card!

I’m very pleased with this card. It was definitely a simple one to make but I do like the result. I thought it might be tricky to do no-line colouring on such a small image, but it worked well enough given that I didn’t need to put an awful lot of detail into it!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Addicted to Stamps and More – Clean and Simple

Christmas At Sweet Stampin’ – Anything Christmas

Christmas Cards All Year ‘Round – Use Leaves

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge Extra – Anything Christmas

HLS Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes

Muse – Inspiration Card (I was inspired by the layout, the wreath, the colour scheme, the Christmas theme, and the simple sentiment.) (edit – where it was a featured member pick!)

Tracey McNeely’s Muse Inspiration Card

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Clean And Simple

TCP Tuesday Challenge – Fall or Winter Holiday