Hellebores - Week 14 Christmas Roses Card

Good evening everyone,

Well, I've done it - completed my weekly Christmas card before Friday. It makes such a change not to be rushing at the last minute as I usually do. And, it is the card based on the beautiful yellow sunflower card created by Brenda, Floral Fantasies, which I so admired - you can see it here and compare :) I particularly liked the background made from nothing more than copy paper, plus stamping, tearing, sticking and white gesso - sounded like fun and just had to try out the technique.

Fortunately, I had a huge tub of white gesso tucked away just waiting to be played with, lots of lovely stamps and plenty of copy paper. So once I'd thought about what was the most suitable ink pad to use, I chose waterproof Archival, I dived in and it was a lot easier than I expected. First, stamp the copy paper fairly randomly with a selection of stamps, leave to dry, then tear into strips, mine are about 1" wide. The strips are mixed up, glued to backing card, then given a thin coat of the gesso. When the gesso was dry I trimmed a 1" panel of the bottom for the greeting, then came a further trim of both panels to fit the pink matting card, and finally gave the edges a touch of TH distress ink, Spun Sugar.

The hellebore decoupage and insert were printed from a CD Rom on to smooth matt paper. The original frame for the decoupage was brown but with a VersaMarker pen and heat embossing with silver powder it was transformed. Once that was done  touches of iridescent glitter on the leaves and hellebores and red glitter on the holly berries gave it sparkle. A spray of Spray & Shine ensures that the glitter doesn't rub off.  And, just to finish the card, the back has a panel of the gorgeous paper.

I'm entering this card for the usual challenges:

• Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #14 - Christmas Foliage and/or Flowers
• Snoflakes Christmas Card Challenge on Docrafts.

Materials used:

• Cardstock: Papermania Premium Textured Cardstock. 2 shades of pink for card and matting; a piece of leftover embossed card in silver for matting; a scrap of black cardstock to back the decoupage frame; a piece of  recycled white Christmas card to back the copy paper, it's going to be well covered so it really doesn't have to be your best cardstock.
• Paper: Print IT Super Smooth Matt Paper, 100gsm; Asda copy paper, 80gsm
• Design Paper & Decoupage: Crafter's Companion Vintage Christmas CD Rom
• Stamps: For the gessoed background - Penny Black Winter Bow; Hero Arts, Flowers are Poetry; Wavy Stars; Crafty Individuals, CI-302 Postcard, Imagine, Be Like The Bird; Sheena Douglass, A Little Bit Sketchy, Best Friends Swirls; the greeting is from Joanna Sheen Giordano, Wonderful Christmas GIO714; the insert sentiment is a ClarityStamp, Christmas Wonder.
• Other Materials: Archival Ink, Jet Black; Boldmere white acrylic gesso from The Works; Heat It Up embossing powder in silver; iridescent and red glitter; Crafter's Companion Spray and Shine; Wild Orchid Crafts ivy leaves and hellebore flowers; the pink beaded twigs were a pound shop find.

I think the finished result is really pretty feminine card - not exactly what I set out to make but the Christmas roses cried out for pink so I just went with it. I definitely use the backing paper technique again, easy but effective. The only difficulty I had was in deciding what stamps to use :)

We've had a beautiful day here, warm and sunny, and I'm told that the weekend is going to be even better so that's something to look forward to. I took a wee stroll round the garden today, taking my camera with me to record the flowers that are now in bloom. The wildlife border is looking promising, lots of fresh green growth and a few early starters. I'll leave you with this photograph of a delicate pulmonaria, common name lungwort, which has grown from seed sown last year. If you look closely you can also see the leaves of a lupin and an aquilegia plant amongst the grasses - can't wait to see them in flower!

And with that I'll say goodnight.