Merry Christmas frame

I rarely use large detailed dies like this, but this one caught my eye. In theory, it should make it easy to create a few quick Christmas cards; which is why it took me two days to finish this one.

I had a dig through my box of background experiments and found this piece of acrylic paper that I’d used to mop up some blue ink at some point — it has a nice bit of colour variation and an interesting texture. I die-cut the frame and made a card base to fit.

I decided to add a bit of colour to a couple of spots on the frame using my Zig real brush markers. I also wanted to add some shine to the bells. I have a liquid chrome pen which is super shiny on flat non-absorbent surfaces, but which turns to a slightly shimmery grey on regular cardstock. Then I had an idea. I painted the bells with black gesso and then used the chrome pen over that; the texture of the paper takes a little bit of the shine off, but I’m really pleased with the effect.

Just the frame on the card base looked a little bare. I die-cut some snowy hills to go above the scene and used the frame to position it on the base. I could have stuck the frame down first, but I wanted the trees and deer to sit in front of the glitter felt snow.

For the sentiment, I picked a nice large stamp and a silver ink pad. Unfortunately, the sentiment looked a bit washed out, so, time for more experimenting. I ended up stamping over the silver using grey archival ink to make it darker and then stamping with the silver over the top to put a bit of the shine back.

I finished it off with some glittery snow drops inside the frame.

But I wasn’t completely happy with it. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. So I left it overnight to see if I could come up with any tweaks.

In the end, I just added a light grey “shadow” around the outside edge of the top and sides of the frame. That adds just a tiny bit of dimension to it and I am a lot happier.

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Justrite – extra grand holiday sentiments
• dies:
  Amy Design – Christmas greeting frame
  My Favorite Things – rolling hills
• inks:
  Delicata – silvery shimmer
  Ranger – archival – watering can
• pens:
  Molotow – liquid chrome 1mm
• colour:
  Zig Clean Colour Real Brush markers
• embellishments:
  Imagination Crafts – detail sparkle – white shimmer
• paper and card:
  Reeves – acrylic pad
  Papermill Direct – pearlised – natural white
• miscellaneous:
  white glitter felt
  black gesso