Hello crafty friends. I’ve been playing with another new Clarity product today – the Triangle Trees masks. These came out of one of Barbara’s SHAC (Safe, Happy & Creative) sessions when she was drawing them, and they make layering up the trees so easy.

First, though, I needed to create a frame on a 6×6 card blank, using the solid & nested embedders. I sat one of the nested embedders on the card front with low tack tape, flipped to the inside of the card and embossed against the inner edge with a bone folder and then a #2 ball tool, which gave me a raised centre. I then positioned the solid embedder onto it (I chose one that was slightly smaller than the centre of the nested one), then again flipped to the inside of the card front and embossed against the outer edge of the embedder (being careful not to crush my first embedder outline. That pushes the card back down the opposite way, leaving a raised frame.

Next, I set to work with the Triangle Trees masks, starting with the outer part of one in the centre of the frame. I brushed ‘iced spruce’ Distress Oxide through it, then added one of the leafy stamps from the Winter Build a Wreath set in the same colour. I popped the centre piece of the mask into place, then removed the outer part (that makes sure the triangle is accurately over the inked image). I added a second mask to the right and repeated the process, this time with ‘evergreen bough’ and a different leafy stamp.

Having masked off the second triangle, I could then add a third one on the left, again with the ‘evergreen bough’ and a different leafy spray stamp. That too was masked off with the inner triangle piece so that, with low tack tape to protect my embossed frame, I could brush more of the ‘evergreen bough’ for the ground, sponging a little ‘hickory smoke’ for shadow below the trees.

I decided to outline the trees with a micron pen, drawing it freehand to give them a deckled edge. I added a gold sentiment from the Christmas rub-ons set and then decorated my trees with Posca pen berries – red for the two outer ones, with white and gold on the central tree.

I’ve combined a few challenges on this card, starting with the sketch from last month (November) at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown (the challenge is to use a previous sketch). My red & green combination picks up the palette from Color Dare and the optional twist from Simply Clean & Simple.