Thursday, December 12, 2019

Season's Greetings!

Hello friends!  Can you believe Christmas is just 2 weeks away?  Since Thanksgiving it's felt like a bit of a crush, but finally I believe I have a handle on everything and will be ready for all the local family events, plus getting everything ready that needs to be mailed.  My husband and I recently moved into our new home from out of state, which put us closer to his family but further away from mine, so I had to plan for mailing gifts that I hadn't in the past.  But I think it's all ready to go, thank heavens.  Now, let's move onto why you came by here in the first place LOL!

I'm joining two challenges with the card I'm sharing today, the color challenge at The Paper Players and the sketch challenge at CAS(E) this sketch.




I used a gorgeous new stamp set from Power Poppy for my card, coloring with Copic markers.  I had to play around to get the blue for the anemones just right for the Seaside Spray color and then used my favorite mix of markers to create gold for the poinsettia.


I carried the gold color into the anemone centers, with the "crumb cake" colors for the leaves.  I decided to leave the berries white, using cool grays to shade.  After the coloring was complete, the panel was die cut and added to a larger panel of Seaside Spray, then popped up on foam tape on the card base.  The sentiment was gold heat embossed on white card stock then I used my paper snips to trim it out before adding to the panel with foam tape.


To enhance the "gold" I sprayed gold shimmer spray onto an acrylic block, diluted it with water and painted it on the poinsettia and anemone flower centers.  It was a bit more opaque than I anticipated, so it muted some of the shading achieved with my the markers (lesson learned there!).  Still, IRL it looks soooo pretty with all that gold shimmer.  I also used an aqua shimmer pen to add sparkle to the berries.  Unfortunately, both the gold and shimmer sparkle aren't really visible in the photos.  I use natural light for the majority of my pictures and the day I shot these photos it was a bit overcast and the camera didn't quite capture all the glitter and shimmer.  Still, I love this color mix and how the card turned out.



Thanks so much for visiting, it's truly appreciated!

Stef


Stamps:  Winter Wonderland (Power Poppy), Holiday Sentiment Mix 1 (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Neenah Solar White and Desert Storm, Seaside Spray
Ink:  Gina K Amalgam Jet Black, Versamark
Other:  Antique Gold embossing powder (Altenew), Gold Sheer Shimmer Spray (Imaginecrafts), Stitched Rectangle A2 stax die (MFT), Tonic Nuvo Aqua Shimmer pen
Copics:  B95, 91, BG70, YR24, 23, Y15, 00, E44, 43, 41, 40, W5, 3, 1, C3, 1, 0

5 comments:

Leslie Miller said...

It's been too long since I dropped in here. How beautiful this is! All your cards are a delight to the eyes. Thank you!

LeAnne said...

What a stunner! Your coloring and shading are gorgeous, and I am sure the shimmer and glimmer make it even more gorgeous IRL! I never have the patience to color big images like this, so it's even more impressive to me, LOL! Thanks for playing with my colors this week at the Paper Players!

Joanne James - The Crafty Owl said...

Glad you are getting organised for Christmas Stef - there always seems so much to do doesn't there?! I love your card and think your colouring is amazing! I always find it difficult to get sparkle to show to good effect when photographing but I can only imaging this already beautiful card looks even more stunning in real life! Thanks for sharing with us over at The Paper Players this week!

Claire Broadwater said...

Just gorgeous, Stef! Your coloring is amazing and this card makes our colors shine! SO happy you joined us at The Paper Players this week! XX

Anne Marie Hile said...

Stef, this is truly stunning! Your image really comes to life with all of that beautiful shading and I can only imagine how gorgeous the shimmer detail is, in person. Thanks so much for joining us this week over at The Paper Players!