Holly Jolly House of Cards

     House Of Cards have a photo prompt this month with a robin in it so that gave me the ideal opportunity to use one of Stampendous new stamp and die sets called Winter Tweets.

      In with the stamp set there is also a stencil of a tree, I have masked off the leaves as I wanted a winter tree. After fixing the stencil to watercolour card I used embossing paste, then sprinkled it with copper embossing powder and heated it.
     The heat makes the powder melt and the paste bubble up which gives the tree a look a little more like a real tree with knobbly bark.

      Once the tree was cool I used Distress Ink Stormy Sky to colour the card, then used the spritz and flick technique to get a more blotchy effect.
I didn't do this first as the paste would have made the ink react and the powder may have stuck to it as well as sticking to the paste.
     The next step was to sprinkle chunky white embossing powder over the whole card and gently heat to melt it, I found a low heat was fine for this and there was less chance of upsetting the tree trunk paste again.

      The holly leaves and robin were stamped on watercolour card in brown ink and clear embossed. Once dry they were both die cut with the stamp sets matching dies.
     To colour both the leaves and the robin I have used Koi watercolour pens and a water brush, they blend beautifully on the right card stock. If the cutting is a little off perfect then just colour the edges to match the rest and they become much less noticeable.
     Once dry both the leaves and the robin have been worked with a ball tool to get some dimension into them. The robin has double depth foam pads underneath him and the leaves have single depth.
     Matted on to a small brown layer and then on to a green card blank the card is almost ready. The addition of a Christmas greeting taken from another stamp set and embossed in copper to match the tree, then die cut and coloured before mounting on thin foam pads completes the card.
     The new challenge at House Of Cards runs for a month, we accept any type of card as long as it follows our theme which is shown bellow, please come and join us with your cards.

Add a bird and/or colours

 Materials list - available from your local craft shop
Woodware Craft Collection - CRS5092 Winter Tweets stamps / DCS5092 Winter Tweets dies

                                          FRS338 Little Elf (greeting)
                                          DWDEPL Dreamweaver Regular Embossing Paste

                                          EP104 Penny Copper Embossing Powder

                                          DP020 Detail Clear Embossing Powder

                                          FREG021 Chunky White Embossing Powder

                                          XBR-48 Koi Brush Pens

                                          
Stix2 Anything - S57049 1mm Craft Foam Pads

                        S57050 2mm Craft Foam Pads

                        FPAL2732925 9mm Double Sided Tape

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Deep Ocean Challenges - Things With Wings

Christmas Card Challenges - Anything Goes