WWC196 – Heidi’s “All About Occasions” Challenge

It’s time for our All About Occasions challenge at Watercooler Wednesday. I chose to make a Christmas card for this challenge, and it’s actually my second Christmas card that I’m sharing today! You can find the first here. I didn’t realise when I started that this was what I would end up making. In fact I’d initially been thinking of doing a birthday card. But it took on a mind of it’s own as I worked on it!

I started by doing some watercolouring. I used Gansai Tambi Pearl Colours in Pearl Pink, Pearl Scarlet Red, and Pearl Lemon Yellow. First I spritzed my snippet of watercolour paper, which was just bigger than a card front, with some water. The water I used actually happened to have Perfect Pearl powder in it, just because that’s what I had to hand, which added even more shimmer and sparkle. I then randomly dropped the colour onto the paper and let it move as it wanted, almost as if I was working with alcohol ink. I kept adding until I was happy with how it looked. At this stage it had an almost marble like pattern to it, with pinker areas and yellower areas. However when it dried back it seemed to lose some of the definition, and it was hard to make out anything other than shimmer!

Rather than using the full panel, as I had originally intended, I decided to cut pieces from it with a die. I chose a Christmas Ornament die from Simon Says Stamp. This particular one seems to be retired (or at least I was unable to find it) but any delicate ornament die could work in its place. I cut five but only ended up using three. I tried to cut from areas so that I would get a bit of each of the different colours on the dies.

I used a snippet of vellum to back each of the dies to give them the look of having frosted glass between the coloured areas. I then used a snippet of silver mirror card to cut the toppers for each of my ornaments and adhered them into place with liquid glue.

I scored a frame onto my white card base using the scoring blade of my paper trimmer then used that as a guide to place my sentiment. I chose Finnish wording for “Happy Christmas” and stamped it with Delicata Pink Shimmer pigment ink. I stamped three times to get a nice strong impression.

Before adding the baubles I used my bone folder to curve them and give them a more three dimensional appearance. I then worked out how I wanted them on my card base, and added them with some Glossy Accents just on the outer edges of the ornaments where they touched the card base. I chose Glossy Accents as it is a nice, strong adhesive which I felt was necessary as the ornaments were not being fully adhered into place. I then used some narrow clear glitter iridescent peel-offs from Love From Lizi to be the strings for the baubles.

Considering I had no idea what I would end up with when I started making this card I’m really happy with how it turned out. The soft colours and delicate shimmer work nicely for a Christmas card, despite the colours being non-traditional. The ink I used for the sentiment is not a perfect match for the baubles themselves, but I think it goes well enough. I also enjoyed being able to use so many snippet pieces to create this card. I tend to keep even smaller snippets to avoid wastage, and it’s good to be able to find use for those little bits.

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

CASology – Glass (edit – where it got an honourable mention!)

Craftyhazelnut’s Christmas Challenge – Anything Goes

HLS Anything Goes With Dies Challenge – Anything Goes With Dies

HLS Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas Goes

Merry Little Christmas Challenge – Anything Christmas Goes

Pixie’s Snippets Playground – Use Snippets

STAMPlorations CAS Challenge – Anything CAS

Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Charlotte (that’s me!)

Gail

Heidi

Helen

Kath

Marsha

Tristan