Cherish The Season With A Gleaming Christmas

 Hello everyone. Hope your day is fantabulous. I had a day off yesterday and got a little crafty.

I’m played along with my friends over on Krafty Chicks Challenge. They are looking for a Christmas themed card in this week's challenge. I’m still in the holiday creating mood so my Christmas/winter stamps sets are close by, the hardest part was deciding which one to play with. I also went looking for a sketch to play along with. My first stop is usually at Freshly Made Sketches. They create clean and simple sketches that are easy to play with and jazz up. As soon as I saw this week's sketch, an idea popped in my head right away.

Here is what came out of that crafty session.

The tag required me to get a little inky. What you do is put a little ink onto your surface. I used my Tim Holtz glass mat but a large clear block would work just fine. The colours I used were Bermuda Bay, Real Red, and Coastal Cabana.

 Spritz a bit of water to get the ink moving. Cover this with a Window Sheet, I think mine is 5x7 and I only use it for projects like this. You can also use a clear plastic sheet from packaging here, recycling is good too and free. Don't move it around, just lay it down gingerly. Carefully pick it back up again, try lifting straight up otherwise the colours might muddle and you don't want that. You can then lay the window sheet onto your card stock and smoosh it lightly. If it doesn't cover your whole background, you can double dip back to your "palette", careful not to muddle the colours. I dipped back into the Real Red only and placed it where I wanted it then, dipped back into the other colours and filled the remaining white spots. Set this aside to dry.

Don't let the remaining ink go to waste. Hopefully it didn't muddle; mine did a bit but not too bad. I did spritz the ink with a couple of sprays then used a Whisper White card stock piece to "mop" it up. This will be used on another card on another day. Clean up your mess at this point. Wipe up your desk/block and window sheet.

Next I wanted splatters; it's a mixed media thing. I started with Coastal Cabana and also did Real Red (not pictured) because it needed a bit more something. First you'll want to cover anything surrounding your card stock. Splatters go everywhere, not only on your project. Add ink to your surface again, spritz with water again, and use your Water Painter to flick specks onto your project. You can tap the barrel onto your finger or run your finger across the bristles (will get dirty finger this method).

And finally, once your card stock is dry, you can assemble your card. I jazzed up my sketch a bit since in a "layers" kind of girl. Layered Real Red card stock behind the retired snowflake DSP and the tag. Also retired is the sliver cord. Stamped the ornament from the Christmas Gleaming stamp set in Bermuda Bay as well as the sentiment. Used the coordinating punch for the ornament and fussy cut the Merry Christmas. I used the middle jingle bell from the Sound of the Season Dies on a scrap Silver Foil sheet. Pop those elements onto dimensionals and voila: I'm done.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you liked this card and try your hand at creating smooshed background. I'd be interested in seeing your creations.