Christmas Rose for Peace on Earth

Peace on Earth has a lovely mood board for the new challenge.  The minute I saw the Christmas rose floral arrangement in the bottom right photo, I knew I wanted to pull out a really old stamp I have.

I stamped in dark green and watercoloured it on watercolour paper, then trimmed into a rectangle, then used one of the Simon Says Stamps thin frames dies to take out a thin rectangle frame.  I used the same thin frames die to cut a frame out of dark copper cs and inserted it into the gap in the watercolour paper.  I mounted that onto a dark green rectangle, cut out with a hemstitch die, and layered that onto a dark copper card base.

While I had the stamp out, I had stamped the image twice.  The card below is the one I made first - much more CAS and with more muted watercolouring.  But I didn't feel I'd captured the richness of the image on the mood board so for the second card (the one above), I aimed for more intense colours and more layers and added in the copper cs to reflect the copper pot on the mood board.

But I do also like this more muted, more CAS version:

I stamped it in a really dark green, watercoloured, trimmed with a hemstitch rectangle die, and mounted on a green card base.

We'd love to see something you create inspired by our mood board or an "anything Christmas" card.  Check out the cards by the rest of the Design Team over at Peace on Earth.

Supplies:
Stamps - Stampin' Up
Ink - dark green ink
Paper - watercolour paper, dark green cs, mid green cs, copper shimmer cs
Size - A2
Accessories - watercolour paints, Spellbinders hemstitch rectangle die, SSS thin frames rectangle die

Red and Green for One, Recycled for the Other

52 Christmas Card Throwdown wants Green and Red this time.  Here's my card:

Stamped and watercoloured, and then die cut it with a hemstitch rectangle die and layered over a red card base. I find that the hemstitch die adds a great deal of interest to a simple image while still keeping it CAS.

I've also got a card for Jingle Belles annual Earth Day challenge to include at least one recycled, reused, or upcycled item.  I have two on my card - a piece of a Christmas coffee cup sleeve and a glittery reindeer that I removed from a commercial card I received.

 

 

I trimmed the coffee cup sleeve but kept its curved edges.  Added it to the card base.  Then added the reindeer by gluing its legs right to the card and popping its body and head up with foam tape.  Finished off by stamping the sentiment.

 

52 Christmas Card Throwdown 

 

 

 

Jingle Belles

 

 

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - SU Christmas Cardinal
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - watercolour paper, red cs
Size - A2
Accessories - watercolour paints, Spellbinders hemstitch rectangle die

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - SU sentiment
Ink - Memento Rhubarb Stalk
Paper - cream cs
Size - A2
Accessories - coffee cup sleeve, glitter reindeer off a commercial card, foam tape

Christmas Rose

November is flying by at a frightening speed.  How are you doing with getting your Christmas cards done?  I'm here to remind you to get a card made for CAS Watercolour that will be perfect for the season:

My card includes both florals and greenery, and it uses a really old (but still much loved by me) stamp:

One reason I love it so much is because I have various Hellebores (commonly called Lenten roses) growing in my garden, one of which is the Christmas rose, more officially and properly known as Helleborus niger.  Botanical names and common plant names get so incredibly complicated - the older brain reels from trying to keep them straight!  The Christmas rose is supposed to bloom at Christmas but mine doesn't usually do much till mid-January, but every year I hope to see it at Christmas.

I stamped in Versafine Onyx Black on watercolour paper, and watercoloured the image.

When dry I trimmed it down with a Spellbinders rectangle die and left it in the die while I carefully sponged around the image with Distress Antique Linen.  When I took it out of the die, I was left with a nice narrow white border.  I attached it to red cs so that I'd have a narrow red border as well.

And finally popped it up on fun foam on a green cardbase.

There's more inspiration over at CAS Watercolour from the rest of the Design Team and this month's wonderful Guest Designer, Maura (see her SCS Gallery here).  You have until November 24th to link up your card.  Please remember to keep it clean and simple with quite a bit of "white space" (on my card the white space is dark green - that's okay because we're talking about "empty space", not literally "white".  Also please note that we're looking for florals and / or greenery, but not Christmas trees.

Hope to see you in our gallery!

Supplies:

Stamps - SU Christmas Rose (from the SU Christmas Cardinal set)

Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, Distress Antique Linen

Paper - watercolour paper, red and dark green cs

Size - A2

Accessories - watercolour paints, Spellbinders rectangle die, fun foam

Pastel Hellebore

Merry Monday has an interesting challenge:

I don't make many cards in pastel colours so this really was a challenge - somehow they just don't seem as Christmas-y as vibrant colours.  Here's what I came up with:

Technically the hellebore variety known as the Christmas rose is white, whereas the hellebores that bloom in the spring are often in shades of pink.  But for my card, it seemed better to go with some pink.

I stamped on hot press watercolour paper and then watercoloured with my Gansai Tambi paints - I lifted off any excess colour by patting with paper towel after each addition of colour.  I added a bit of Wink of Stella to the hellebore centres and the berries.

I bordered it with very pale gold cs, then popped it up on fun foam on a pale green shimmer card base.  One of my resolutions for 2018 is to use up some of my coloured cs so I'm trying to make the occasional card with a coloured card base.

I'm happier than I thought I'd be with the pastel colours.

Supplies:

Stamps - SU

Ink - Archival Jet Black

Paper - pale green and pale gold shimmer cs, mixed media cs

Size - A2

Accessories - Gansai Tambi watercolours, Wink of Stella, fun foam