52 (Christmas) Card Throwdown

This is my challenge entry for the 52 (Christmas) Card Throwdown . This is a great way of building a stock pile of christmas cards, thus making the festive season a little less stressfull. I love making christmas cards so this is a handy excuse to continue playing, though it does mean the festive stash cannot be put away until August as it once was.

This weeks theme is 'Christmas Flowers'. The stamp set 'Ivy' from Creative Expressions . The background has been made using Distress Inks spritzed with water and also Enchanted Gold Cosmic Shimmer. The Ivy has been embossed with Cosmic Shimmer Bright Gold and coloured in with Cosmic watercolours. The rose was stamped on white card and gold embossed four times, I then built the flower to give it dimension. Instructions for this can be found on Creative Expressions website.

The sentiment is on the same stamp plate. It was stamped and embossed before being cut out with a Spellbinders die, I left the die in place while I used Distress Ink to colour the cut out so that I got the white border. It was then mounted on foam pads to give it a little lift.

Matting and layering were done to pick out the Distress colours. Maybe not the colours you would expect on a christmas card but I think a challenge is all about leaving your comfort zone and playing.

Rosette Peacocks

This little Peacock was inspired by Tim Holtz and his 'Quirky Turkeys' . You can find out how he made them by looking in November 2011 on his blog. I'm sorry there's no link, I tried to set it up but I couldn't get it to work.

All I did was to make the rosettes in peacock type colours. The biggest rosette was cut from an offcut of card that had been sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer misters in dark blues and purples. The second rosette was cut from a gorgeous pearlised card that I got at a craft fayre and the smallest rosette was cut from Bazill card.

The head had to be drawn differently from the turkey, so I used Tim's turkey head as a base shape and changed the neck and added a tuft on top of his head. He is assembled in the same way as the turkeys but gives a taste of summer. The eyes have been made using Cosmic Shimmer PVA pearlised glue in Black. I also stuck the whole thing together using Cosmic PVA dries clear glue and not a glue gun, it works very well. I have to say that for what appears to be just a PVA glue Cosmic Shimmer PVA really sticks !!

Once I've demolished my chocolate muffin I'm going to try some other variations.

Happy crafting, let me know if you've tried these birds, turkeys or peacocks, I'd love to hear about it.