Christmas Treats – MM 263

There’s just eight weeks to go until Christmas. How are you doing with your preparations? I’m gradually working on making Christmas presents, and still have some more Christmas cards to make. If you’re in the same boat perhaps the latest Merry Monday challenge will help! This week Lori has provided us with a great image to get the inspiration flowing. I used it to create this clean, simple and monochrome card.

I started by ink blending the strips on the top of my card. I picked out two different shades of brown pigment ink, applied some post-it tape to mask so that I’d only blend the desired area, and added ink with an ink blending tool. I made sure that the colour was concentrated at the tops of the strips, fading as it came down the card front.

I then moved on to creating my focal image. I again masked off an area before doing ink blending. I had considered having the brown blending represent the table, but decided to do it the other way instead. This decision was in part because the table in the photograph is white, but also because I was feeling too lazy to bother making a mask for my image! I used one of the same brown inks to blend to give the impression of a wall behind a table, creating a simple scene.

After removing my masks I stamped my image, which is from The Cat’s Pajamas Polar Holiday stamp set, using MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink. I then coloured the images using a combination of Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers and Yosoo markers. I used browns as I wanted a monochrome look, but also added a few touches of grey to add shadows and dimension to the white areas.

I used some Memory Box square dies to create a frame for my image from a snippet of brown paper. I laid it in place to use it as a guide for stamping my sentiment, which comes from Pink and Main’s hOWLidays. I then adhered the frame in place using some narrow strips of foam tape to give it dimension.

As a final touch I used white gel pen to add highlights to the round biscuit (cookie), and applied clear Wink of Stella to the cup, saucer, and plate.

Monochrome cards can be pretty fun – I enjoy the challenge of working with a limited colour palette. And browns are a pretty good choice for me at the moment given the selection of pens I have. If I had a decent brown ink for stamping (the inks I used for blending are very cheap and do not stamp well at all) I would have used that instead of the black, just to really keep the browns going, but in any case I’m pleased with the result.

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Christmas Cards All Year ‘Round – Christmas and Monochromatic Browns

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge Extra – Anything Christmas

HLS Anything Goes With Dies – Anything Goes With Dies

HLS Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

Merry Monday – Inspiration Image

Rudolph Days – Anything Christmas

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes

Stamplorations Theme and Sketch Challenge – Sketch/Layout

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Charlotte (that’s me!)

Colleen

Deanne

Debbie

Felicita

JoAnn

Kelly

Kim

Kimberly

Linda S

Linda W

Lori

Marcia

Nina

Sue