12 Days of Christmas Challenge ~ Day 8: Joy to the World Bouquet

 

Welcome to Day 8 of the 12 Days of Christmas December Challenge Event! It's Gloria with you today! 

I am so lucky to be able to share the lovely Joy to the World Bouquet stamp set with you! This is my absolute favorite of the entire Quiet Christmas Release!

For my release project I used the digital version of this set (See Below), but for today's project I decided to use the clear version. I don't stamp very often these days, so it was fun to actually get out some inks and have a play...and boy did I play!

I had fully expected to color this image with Copic markers or with colored pencils. But, when I shared my original project with some folks, they all said, "That is very pretty, but I don't/can't color like that!" So I thought, maybe there are lots of folks who don't enjoy coloring or don't have the time to devote to coloring a complicated image like this one.

I would like for everyone to feel that they can make this image shine! This image IS stunning colored with markers, pencils, or watercolor paints. But, I think it is just as stunning with a more simple inked background!

I created a bunch of backgrounds FIRST, then allowed them to dry before stamping. For some of the backgrounds, I blended distress ink and other dye inks onto white cardstock panels with a blender brush. 

For other panels, I used a wet technique. I smudged the distress into onto my craft mat, added water, then smooshed the paper around in the ink. I did several layers, drying in between color families.

After allowing the ink to dry, I stamped onto the panels with various inks and embossed with various powders. Some of the examples turned out very well...others did not. But, that is the point of having a play! Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I chose a few panels that I thought looked the best, and decided to try to make some cards with them. I wanted to keep the cards pretty simple, and I wanted them to be mostly flat for easy mailing.

I ended up making three cards, but I put the rest of the panels aside for further projects.

This card is my favorite of all the cards I made! I used the "wet" ink technique to drag a white cardstock panel through different colors of pink ink. I allowed the ink to dry then repeated the process with blue ink and with a deep magenta ink.

I love the speckled look of the paper! After the ink was dry, I stamped the image onto the panel with black permanent ink, which also needed to dry! (Watching ink dry is boring!)

I printed the sentiment from the Forest Finds digital stamp set onto another piece of white cardstock. I used a die template to cut out the sentiment, making sure to line the die up with the bottom edge. 

I then used the same die to cut my image panel to fit the top portion of the white panel. I added ribbon and a few enamel dots before attaching the finished panel to the black card base. I created a card base that is roughly 6" x 4 3/4", which is not a very standard size! I will have to make an envelope to fit! 

The next two cards were made using the "dry" ink method.

This version has a background of distress inks added to white cardstock using a blender brush. I layered on various pink and lavender inks and allowed them to dry.

I stamped the image onto the panel with watermark ink, and then heat embossed with sparkly black embossing powder! I stamped the sentiment with black dye ink.

You can see how the embossing powder sparkles. It is black powder with iridescent flecks in it. I flicked on some white paint to add some "snow," and the card is finished! This is a standard A2 card, and flat for easy mailing!

I also wanted to try a blue and white version, so I repeated the process of using a blender brush to add various blue inks to a white panel. 

I stamped with watermark ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder. This is a very detailed image, so you need to use a very fine embossing powder.

I almost wish I had stamped the sentiment in a blue ink, rather than black. I created another A2 card, plus I added some sparkly enamel dots to the card front.

The Joy to the World Bouquet set also comes in a digital version.

You can print the digital version at any size you with. For my original project, I printed the image at just smaller than 10" X 8"!

You can see how different the image looks at a larger size, and all colored in with markers and pencils. To see this version, click HERE.

Remember, the 12 Days of Christmas December Challenge continues through December 12th!

Don't forget to check out all the festive fun on our Day 1 post on the Power Poppy Blog, HERE.

Merry Christmas!