Stamped Christmas tree

This little batch of cards was inspired by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer’s Hand-stamped Trees. Over the years I have carved a handful of small stamps; I gathered them up and selected a few that felt like the patterns would work together.

Rather than use tape, I cut out a simple triangle stencil for the tree shape and randomly stamped the patterns in a selection of green Distress Oxides on glossy paper. I deliberately used glossy paper because of how it reacts with the Distress Oxides. You can happily leave the stamping as it is, but if you also have some of the Distress micro glaze, you can use that to polish off the powdery-looking oxide effect, leaving a shiny inked finish instead where the dye element of the ink has soaked into the glossy paper.

With the tree stamping done, I carved a rough tree holder and stamped that with red Stazon ink. The tree decorations are glitter paper dots in gold, silver and white, and the stars are leftover die cuts layered together and topped with a blob of red glitter glue.

The whole panel was then layered onto a piece of shiny red foil card — not that you can really tell from the photos — and a white card base.

Another small batch completed.

Supplies:

• stamps:
  hand-carved stamps
• stencils:
  hand-cut triangle stencil
• dies:
  Create A Smile – double stitched rectangles
• inks:
  Distress Oxide inks – selection of greens
  Stazon – blazing red
• embellishments:
  leftover die-cut stars from stash
  paper glitter dots – white, gold, silver
  Imagination Crafts detail sparkle – berries
• paper and card:
  Ranger – gloss paper
  metallic card – red
  Hunkydory Matt-tastic – soft white
• miscellaneous:
  Distress micro glaze