The Magic Of Christmas...

Hello friends...

As another week flies by, it's time to share my next project that I've created for the Tim Holtz Holiday Inspiration Series. As the big day approaches, I'm sure most crafters are busy making their cards to send to family and friends and I thought this stamp set from Stampers Anonymous, combined with the Plaid Stencil was the perfect combination to create a really special card to send to someone for Christmas!

So let's get started...

To begin with I cut a panel of mixed media heavyweight card stock, measuring 12cm square. I then stamped the image of Santa in the centre of the card, using Jet Black Archival Ink. I watercolored the image using Distress Marker Pens and a watercolour brush, building up the colour gradually to created the shading.

I gave the image a blast of heat to set it before blending Old Paper and Antique Linen Distress Ink over the surface to create a more aged look to the card. I then inked up the pine foliage stamp from the Christmas Classic set with Antique Linen Distress Oxide Ink and stamped the image all around the edge of the card. I then inked the edges with a little Frayed Burlap ink before stamping the word, Magic in the bottom right hand corner. Matt the panel onto gold kraft card, followed by a piece of burlap before moving onto the background and that gorgeous plaid stencil.

I wanted to create a continual pattern across my background but wanted to use the stencil on a larger surface area than the stencil on it's own would cover ~ so, to do this I laid the stencil down onto my card, starting on the left hand side and then inked through it using a blending tool and Candied Apple Oxide Ink. Once you have completed the first section of the inking, carefully remove the stencil and by moving the stencil around, and you might need to do this several times, you can line up the pattern to create a continual design right across a larger panel of card. Once the stencilling was complete, I stitched around the outside of the card layer before matting it onto a further piece of gold metallic kraft card, followed by a piece of the red card from the Classic Kraft card stash, each time leaving a border showing around each of the layers.

Mount the background layers onto the centre of a kraft card blank, I used one measuring 18cm square which I lightly splattered across the surface, using the Splatter Brush and some Picket Fence Paint.

I then mounted the artwork panel onto the centre of the plaid background using foam pads to create dimension.

To complete the card, I added some die cut foliage, which I arranged over a bed of cheesecloth. At this stage, I also applied some Tonic Nuvo Drops onto the foliage to create the look of berries and allowed them to dry.

The scruffy bow is made from Crinkle Ribbon dyed with Candied Apple Distress Spray Stain and I attached this to the centre of my foliage arrangement.

In the centre of the bow, I added a Christmas Typed Token and a Tiny Bell. As the finishing touch, I placed a star adornment just over the top of the word...Magic!

 Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope you've loved this card and been inspired by the techniques of how I combined the Distress Inks, Marker Pens and Oxide Inks, to create the artwork and background for this card!

See you again soon and don't forget if you do happen to miss any project in this series, then you can catch up with them all over on Tim's blog every Saturday!

Emma x

Recipe for project:

Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Stamps: Christmas Classic
Layering Stencil: Plaid

Tim Holtz/Sizzix: Holiday Greens

Distress Paints: Picket Fence
Distress Spray Stain: Candied Apple
Distress Ink: Antique Linen, Old Paper and Frayed Burlap
Distress Oxide Inks: Antique Linen, Candied Apple
Distress Marker Pens

Idea-ology: Christmas Typed Token, Tiny Bells, Crinkle Ribbon, Star Adornments

Surfaces: Classic Kraft Stash, Metallic Kraft Stash
Autumn Red Nuvo Drops

Ranger Craft Sheet

Splatter Brush

Big Shot

Heat Gun

Cheesecloth and kraft card blank from my own stash