Peace

Like many card makers, I've begun my Christmas cards. This first set has come about for a couple of reasons ...

Firstly, 'Peace' is really the message I want to send out this Christmas, and the design I've started with has  a lot of dark and also some light, fitting with the turmoil the world is currently undergoing, but overall sending a message of Peace and Hope.

Secondly, yesterday I was trying to heat emboss the raised surfaces of an embossed panel, but had no luck at all. I finished up with big, chunky, blocky sections of silver, but they were too pretty to toss, so I've added stencilling, and stamping in very dark shades to try and give some balance.


Despite the gold-look in this one, the embossing is silver.

The name of this lovely, graceful Embossing  Folder is 'Waterfall' by Couture Creations. First I sponged using Distress 'Broken China'. I love this colour, especially for skies.

Next, more sponging with Memento 'Nautical Blue'. This is the first time I've used this shade, and I love it. 



To darken the blue shading even further, and to add some visual texture, I stamped with my SU 'En Francais' stamp ~ but any script stamp would do. I also sponged the colour [Archival 'Cobalt'], through a couple of sheets I had left over from hole punching and from cutting out some stamens from the Heartfelt Creations 'Aster' die set. A snowflake stamp would be good here, but I had this on my table and thought it worked well. The big blocky chunks of silver are actually starting to look as if they belong!

I trimmed a piece of navy card to matt my main image, but it wasn't the right shade ~ too purpley. All I had though, and black looked wrong.

A heavy sponging with the 'Nautical Blue' fixed the problem.

I used the 'Peace' stamp from this set for the sentiment, and stamped it onto a small label that I'd die-cut ages ago using the Card Creator A2 'Distressed Edges' set, but any tag would do, or a hand-cut one ... the white tag was sponged on the edges with 'Nautical Blue' and matted onto a small piece of the navy card, just the cut-off end of the piece I used to matt the main panel.

These doves are a die set by Memory Box, called 'Peace Doves'. It comes as a set of two. I sponged the edges to give the illusion of shape.

And here are the three cards I came up with ... all the same, but all a little different. I may go back and add some more text to the one on the right, but other than that I'm fairly happy, and really glad I didn't  toss the panels yesterday!