Wildlife By The River Of Creativity

 

     I'm trying something different for this month's River Of Creativity, we may be a multi craft challenge but that doesn't mean you can't enter with a card project. So if you are making your Christmas cards you can join us as long as it has a wild animal on it.

     This trio started as a splodge background using Distress Oxides. I like making a few of these splodge backgrounds in a nice long, messy play session, no two are ever the same, even when using the same colours.

     To add a little sparkle to the background I used pearl mica water instead of just water when spritzing the inks, I have found that this means I can tip the stamp platform around mixing up the inks with no need for a brayer. You do need a heavy weight card so it doesn't buckle when wet or better still watercolour card, although that can be harder to stamp on than smooth.

     Tartan seems to be popular this year so I searched through my stash and found one that picked out the ink colours perfectly, more by luck than judgement. 

      I stamped with Versafine Black using Lavinia Stamps deer and trees, the beauty of a stamp platform is silhouettes are no longer hit and miss, these images were stamped three times to get a nice dark coverage.

      When I cut mat layers I am very frugal, why use a complete layer when a wide border will do, I can keep the inners for another project.

     Although each card has a similar background I wanted them to be noticeably different. The first one was cut as a stitch dot square, mounted on a thin black mat, then on top of the tartan layer using foam tape, with the tartan flush to the card. To finish off I used a white gel pen to add highlights, mixed results with this, then a few tiny silver peel off stars.

     The second one I cut with a stitch dot circle, matted on a black layer with foam onto the tartan layer that was die cut in the corners with a snowflake pattern. To keep the curve element I used a corner punch on both the tartan and the card blank.

     I have been admiring the eclipse cards popping up in blogland so decided to give it a try. The main panel was again cut with the stitch dot square but then die cut with a bauble die. I then cut four plain card layers with the same bauble and stuck them together to make a thick mat. I wanted to add a little sparkle so I coloured the edge of this thick mat with a silver Sharpie, followed by a silver glitter gel pen, then I stuck the top layer on.

      As the bauble was raised I chose to mat and layer all the other pieces without any foam tape. This image has a small Father Christmas and reindeer stamped in the sky and to finish it off I used a white Posca pen to add the snowfall.

      All three cards are 7x7 inches so will either be a large letter or hand delivered. It was challenging to make them all appear different while using the same stash and it adds three cards to the box ready for December.

      Please come and join us at River of Creativity with anything you have made, including cards, that features wildlife. 

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

Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round - Something beginning with S or T

Sparkles Christmas - #129 Flora / Fauna

Jingle Belles - Snow

CraftyHazelnut's Christmas - #152 Anything Christmas

The Holly and Ivy - #102 Anything Christmas

Merry Little Christmas - #39 Anything Christmas

Peace On Earth Christmas - #1 Anything Christmas