monochrome Christmas

Good morning everyone! I’m very excited to have been invited along as Guest Designer for the new challenge at AAA Cards, where they have a CAS (clean and simple) theme with an optional twist of grey monochrome – right up my street! As it’s autumn, I reached again for Clarity’s Elementree stamp set, pairing it up with the Build a Scene masks to create a rather different Christmas card.

I based my layout on the sketch at Hand Stamped Sentiments, pairing it with the non-traditional colours theme at Sparkles Christmas Challenge (no red or green in sight!)

I cut a card topper to fit on a 6×6 card blank and set about building the background with the masks from the Black Forest sheet in the set. I brushed ‘hickory smoke’ Distress Oxide across the landscape and mountains masks, then added a medium sized moon mask and brushed ‘weathered wood’ into the sky. I also sponged a little of the ‘weathered wood’ across the moon, although was a bit heavy handed with the first bit of this before I removed the moon mask!

I stamped one of the Elementree leaves together with a sentiment from the I Am Essentials – Christmas set. At this point, I didn’t feel the background was clear enough, so repositioned the landscape masks and sponged a little more of the ‘hickory smoke’ along the top of each to define it better.

I mounted the topper onto the 6×6 card blank and then decided to add some sparkle to just lift the greys. I outlined the tree with a Quickie glue pen and sprinkled Perga glitter over it so it looked frosty. One key tip I forgot is to make sure that all your ink is fully dry and dust the card front with a little talc or and anti-static pad before doing this – I had to a use a fine paintbrush to sweep off all the extra glitter that had clung to the background!

And here’s a close-up of my sparkly tree, once I’d got rid of all the extraneous glitter!

Do check out the inspiration from the AAA Cards team over on their blog and then come and play along with us!

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22 thoughts on “monochrome Christmas”

  12. Such a lovely scene you’ve created Deborah with these gorgeous muted greys! Thank you for sharing with us in our Non-traditional Colour Challenge at the Sparkles Christmas Challenge!Hugs, Kate (DT Sparkles Christmas Challenge)!

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