Happy November, everyone! You know what is just around the corner, don't you? The holidays! Before you know it, we'll be sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner here in the U.S. and then all of a sudden panic that we don't have our holiday cards ready to mail out ... at least that is usually the scenario in my house -- how about yours?!! So I thought I'd better get a jump on the holidays, with this card today:
The background for this card is another one of my Copic "watercolor" backgrounds. You can find the step-by-step tutorial I previously did for the CLASSroom HERE. Basically, it involves squirting Copic Various Ink Refills onto an acrylic stamp block, spritzing the colors with a little Copic Colorless Blender Solution in a Mini Mister, then "stamping" the color onto paper. In the previous tutorial, I used glossy cardstock but this time I used Ranger's Specialty Stamping Paper -- I LOVE the matte finish of this paper! The Copic Ink needs a coated surface to the paper on which you'd like to stamp -- it helps the colors to move around and create pretty patterns and watercolor type effects, rather than immediately sinking into the paper exactly as it is stamped (and I show an example of that in the previous tutorial).
The Copic Various Ink Refills I used for this card were YG07 and RV55, for a little more vibrant twist on the traditional holiday green and red. For this particular background, I stamped the color horizontally (in this portrait orientation) twice -- thus, the little bit of a line you see running through the middle of the background where the two stampings meet.
I loved the round drop of color that appeared in this background's stamping and thought it would be perfect for this sweet little ornament from Julie's Essentials by Ellen Christmas Scribbles stamp set! After stamping the ornament with Jet Black Archival Ink, I stamped the scribble branch once (as you see above). I wanted a larger/longer branch, so I just stamped the branch again, creating an extension!
Next, I carefully dabbed/dotted Copic Sketch Markers YG17 and RV09 (darker versions of the background Various Ink Refills) to color the ornament, trying to avoid the stamped lines -- I say "carefully" because you don't want to move the background color around too much OR disturb the Archival Ink stamp lines. On this coated paper surface, the Copic marker will most likely smear the stamped image. Lastly, I drew in an ornament hanger/string with my Copic 0.3 Multiliner, "attaching" the ornament to the branch:
To finish the card, I die cut My Favorite Things Joy Photo Card Frame out of Bazzill Card Shoppe Licorice Twist cardstock and popped it up with 1/4" Copic Foam Tape over the background. The card base is top-folded Neenah 110 lb. Solar White cardstock:
The bright colors of the background remind me of multi-colored Christmas tree lights all lit up in a dark room, with the tree branches creating a dark silhouette! And there we go ... another holiday card for my growing stash! Thanks so much for joining me today! ~ Sharon
