Tuesday, 4 November 2014

Simple Joy

What I was aiming for:  a simple card in non-traditional Christmas colours.  I achieved that by using one of my top favourite stamp sets, Lovely as a Tree along with a much-loved but retired stamp set, Winter Memories.

I used a base  of Naturals White, then a layer of Basic Black and then a layer of Whisper White which I first prepared by stamping.  I used a small acrylic block and three blues:  Soft Sky, Pool Party and Coastal Cabana.  First I spritzed the Whisper White with alcohol, then I stamped the three colours using my acrylic block, and finally I spritzed more alcohol over the stamped colours.

Once that dried, I stamped over the blues with my pine tree stamp using Memento black ink.  On another little piece of Whisper White I stamped only the little boy, dog and snowman from the Winter Memories stamp using Memento black ink.  Then I coloured the images using only the same blues and a touch of Smoky Slate and skin tone.  I also stamped only the "joy" from the stamp in the hostess Good Greetings stamp set centred just below the tree.

I cut around the images I had coloured and used Dimensionals to attach the piece in the lower right hand portion of the card.  And that completed my simple Christmas card.


You can see I flipped the sketch from the Just Add Ink challenge over on its side.  For more cards using this sketch, check out Just Add Ink.


For more cards using non-traditional colours for their Christmas cards, check out "Less is More".

14 comments:

  1. Great Christmas card Heidi and your ink block background makes a lovely backdrop for your images. Thanks for joining us at Just Add Ink.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much, Nikki. The sketch worked beautifully for this card.

      Delete
  2. Heidi I love your card with the blues !!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Simply beautiful Heidi.
    Love the colours and the stylish stamping.
    Great use of non-traditional colours
    Thanks so much for sharing and taking part.
    Sarah xx
    Less is More

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so very much for your wonderful comments, Sarah. I appreciate them.

      Delete
  4. Heidi, I love the technique that you used for the background of your stamped image. The crisp black looks so good against the soft blues. This is a beautiful card! Thanks for playing along with us at Just Add Ink this week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much, Christine. Spritzing the stamped background colours with alcohol made them more mottled which I really liked. I like using silhouettes, too, so having the tree black just helped spotlight my main image of the boy, dog and snowman that much more.

      Delete
  5. Thanks for reminding me of the acrylic block background technique... it looks super!
    Thanks so much
    Chrissie
    "Less is More"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much, Chrissie. I like the mottled look that occurred when I spritzed the block stamping with alcohol.

      Delete
  6. Wow, this is gorgeous! I love the way you've created the scene with your stamping. Thanks for playing along with us at Just Add Ink.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Tina. I loved the sketch and the rest fell into place.

      Delete
  7. Super combination of stamps Heidi and love your colourscheme!
    Sorry to be so late commenting this week, thanks so much for your LIM entry
    Anne
    Less is More Designer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much, Anne. I appreciate your comments.

      Delete

I welcome your comments or questions.