Mixing Sponging and Watercolouring

I needed a couple of Christmas-themed cards that didn't actually say "Merry Christmas" on them, to send to friends who won't be feeling very merry this Christmas because of losing loved ones recently.

I'm linking this first one to the CAS Mix Up challenge.

This month the challenge is sponging.  Because I'm not very good at watercolour wash backgrounds, I thought I'd try watercolouring the image and sponging the background.

I stamped and watercoloured the image, then masked it, and sponged the background with a couple of shades of blue Distress ink.  I splattered with watered-down white acrylic paint but I'd watered it down too much so wasn't happy with the splatter I got, so added some white Frantage and heated from underneath.  I die cut the focal image and added it to a dry embossed background.

So for CAS Mix Up, I have sponging and stamping, and for my choice, I have watercolouring, splatter, die cut, heat embossing (the Frantage), and an embossing folder.

Because I'd fussy cut the mask, I decided to use the same image and technique for the second card but didn't add as many options to it.

I used slightly different colours for both my watercolouring and sponging, and added a less diluted acrylic paint splatter and a few die-cut snowflakes.

I love this new stamp!  I didn't do anything fancy with the snow on the leaves and branches, but want to use it for future cards and add glitter or Flower Soft to the snow.

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black

Ink - Ranger Archival Jet Black, various blue Distress inks

Paper - watercolour paper, white cs, black cs (for border in card 2)

Size - A2

Accessories - white acrylic paint, Gansai Tambi watercolour paints;  Card 1 - Stampendous Frantage chunky white embossing enamel, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Sizzix framelit die;  Card 2 - small snowflake die