Beauty of the Season

I love the Hero Arts Peace Poinsettia so much that I had to make one of my Christmas cards with it. I made tags with it previously, and you can find that post here.

I am CASEing this tag from Loll Thompson here, which I absolutely love.

I have also been wanting to do a card with the Memory Box Distressed Snowflake Collage die, so here it is!

First, I die cut the main white panel of Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock with the Lawn Fawn LF768 Small Stitched Rectangle die set (the largest one). If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I use this die a lot. I like it because it cuts a panel to 3.75" x 5" with a nice stitched edge.

I then took the white panel and used one of the Memory Box 30061 Distressed Snowdrift Collage dies to cut a pattern into the left corner. This set actually has 4 different collage dies, and I love them all. Collage dies are ones that cut a hole in your paper, i.e. cut a negative of the shape.

I added Crystal Stickles to the center of each of the snowflakes and to the larger circle openings for a little bling.

I stamped the Hero Arts CL796 Peace Poinsettia stamp a couple of times onto Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock with Versamark ink, along with 2 leaves per flower. I embossed all of these images with JudiKins detail gold embossing powder to prepare them for coloring.

To color these, I wanted to watercolor with Distress ink, and like with the tags, I used Candied Apple Distress for the flowers, and a combination of Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn for the leaves.  I put the ink on an acrylic block and spritzed it with pearly water (1/4 tsp of Perfect Pearls powder mixed with 2 oz of water in a spritzer bottle). Working with a petal at a time, I first painted with clear water and then with the ink.

I started painting at the center and let the ink flow to the tips of each petal. As long as the ink is wet you can still work it. I left some of the tips very light, and sometimes when a petal was getting too dark, I would blot with a paper towel. I love coloring like this, and find it fun and relaxing. I just put on some Christmas music and sat and painted!

For the next step I die cut the flowers and leaves.I attached two leaves to each flower with tape on the back.

I stamped each of the white panels that I had previously prepared with a sentiment from the Hero Arts CL722 Merry Christmas Messages stamp set using Versafine Onyx Black ink. The panels were then adhered to Stardream Jupiter cardstock cut to 4" x 5.25" and that was adhered to a base card of Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock.

The Poinsettia and leaves were attached to the front of the card using foam tape to pop it up a little (but not too much so that it would be hard to mail). I love how these turned out, and they were fun to make.

Products Used:
Memory Box 30061 Distressed Snowdrift Collage dies
Lawn Fawn FL768 Small Stitched Rectangle Stackables
Hero Arts CL796 Peace Poinsettias
Hero Arts DI108 Poinsettia Die Cuts
Hero Arts CL722 Merry Christmas Messages
Distress inks: Candied Apple; Peeled Paint; Mowed Lawn
Versamark ink
Versafine Onyx Black ink
JudiKins Detail Gold embossing powder
Stardream Jupiter cardstock
Neenah Solar White cardstock 80# & 110#