It's Not Just Black & White

 

     The new challenge at Christmas Craft Creations this month is a colour theme, use black, white and one other colour. A splash of red for Christmas and an idea that positive and negative might work well was what started these two cards.

      It took a little while to work out what had to be stamped where and in what colour but once I got going it all worked out. I also stamped some on kraft card to try later as this was the sample I had seen at HoneyDoo Crafts shop.

      White ink can be a bit hit and miss so I embossed with white to get a good coverage. Stamping with black was fine so these were not embossed. I asked Amanda at HoneyDoo how she had got that perfect red on her card and she very kindly told me it was paper pieced.

      I stamped enough for these cards and a few spare......just incase. 

     

      I found it easier to add shading to the main image before adding the paper pieces, this was done with a mixture of 4B pencil, white pencil and a white pastel pencil. Detail was added with a white gel pen and a black fineline pen.

      It was important when I cut the paper pieces out that I cut along the lines, this meant there were no red edges showing outside the stamped line.

      All off the paper pieces were stuck on with Stix2 3D PVA, it's a good strong glue that dries clear.

      There was a lot of open space around the image so I hand drew a wiggly line around the edge as a frame, I was going to add a few sprigs of holly but my drawing skills are not great and after all that work I didn't want to make a mess of it.

      The base cards are 7x7 so I had room for a mat layer or two. When adding narrow mats I tend to use an inexpensive white card and an alcohol marker rather than cut up my precious coloured card.

      The mat on the greeting is also a 'frugal' layer. All main layers were stuck down flush to the card blank but the greeting was put on with foam tape, just to give a little bit of a lift.

      These cards can go letter post as they are thin enough but sadly being over 6.5 inches wide they will be large letter. By making two similar cards I am managing to increase my card stash a little faster as well as stretch my imagination.

      Please pop over to the Christmas Craft Creations blog for lots of inspiration and remember it doesn't have to be a card, we accept other projects as long as they follow the theme.

I would like to enter these cards in the following challenges:

The Holly and Ivy - #103 Anything Christmas

CraftyHazelnut's Christmas - #563 Anything Christmas

Merry Little Christmas - #39 Anything Christmas

Peace On Earth Christmas - #1 Inspiration Board

Mix It Up - #54 Anything Goes / Paper Piecing