Christmas season is fast approaching - can you believe it? Every year I promise myself I will be better organized and start my Christmas cards early, and nearly every year I end up re-using gift tags I made in previous years - but not this year! This year I'm getting an early start on my Christmas cards, using some gorgeous holiday-themed chipboard. And in the process I came up with a technique for easily adding lots of colour to detailed chipboard - don't you just love when creative inspiration strikes?
I found the idea for a shadow box card on Pinterest and couldn't wait to try it out for myself. Because Blue Fern papers are so thick, I didn't need to use a cardstock base, I built the card directly from my background paper. Though not a Christmas paper in and of itself, the Picnic paper from the Blue Fern Garden collection easily lends itself to Christmas projects.
Here is a side view of the card showing the dimension of the shadow box.
I love the Holiday Wreath set, and was loath to discard the punch out pieces, but that left me with a dilemma - how could I colour the insets and outer portions in different colours? My end solution was a combination of poster pen, glitter, leafing pen and alcohol markers, covered with embossing powder to prevent the colour looking flat.
I mounted the Christmas Tree from the Let It Snow set on Blue Fern Studios' signature chipboard packaging, punched out the wavy bits and treated those with a snow medium, and while that dried heat embossed the tree with two colours of embossing powder. The stump is made from a punch out piece from another piece of chipboard (I always save these because you never know when they'll come in handy).
Blue Fern Studios Products Used:
Blue Fern Garden paper: Picnic
Blue Fern Studios chipboard packaging
Chipboard: Holiday Wreath Set
Let It Snow Set
I was so pleased with the way the wreath turned out I created a second card with a photo tutorial to show the process.
I began by adding my highlights - for this piece I used a white poster pen to fill in the whorls in the wreath. There are a couple punch outs missing - don't worry, it won't be noticeable unless you're looking for them.
I then began adding colour using alcohol markers. The brush tip allows for precision, and the alcohol ink is not water soluble so it will stay where you put it. For this wreath I chose to only use one colour of ink, however as you can see from the first card, you can use as many colours as you'd like to achieve the look you're after.
I covered the piece with embossing ink, and then with a silverizing embossing powder, tapping the piece off so that the coverage was heavier in some areas than others.
Here is the finished piece ready for my card. The embossing powder gives the piece beautiful sheen and lots of texture.
And here is the finished card:
The mittens from the Cozy Christmas set made a perfect accent piece for the wreath, heat embossed with three different colours of embossing powder (I used a paintbrush to paint on the embossing ink to keep the colours from mixing).
Some red glitter glue completed my holiday wreath.
Blue Fern Studios Products Used:
Blue Fern Garden paper: Signature
Ombre Dreams paper: Susan's Dream
Chipboard: Holiday Wreath Set
Cozy Christmas
Thank you for your visit today!
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