Hello everyone. I’m still in major Christmas card production mode, so here’s another one for you using our new colours at CAS Colours & Sketches (which I chose!). I decided to try them out on the Holly Build a Bauble stamps, having discovered that there is a variety of holly (ilex aquifolium) that has yellow berries – who knew?!

I kept it to one layer for this design, as I want to batch make a few more of these, so started by embossing a frame on the front of a 5×5 card with a square embedder and a small ball tool. I then stamped the holly bauble outline into place using black Archival ink.

As always, Clarity provide pre-cut masks with the stamp set, so it was an easy job to isolate the bauble so I could add colour to it. I popped a mini moon mask into place too, then sponged ‘stormy sky’ Distress Oxide into the aperture, adding a little ‘chipped sapphire’ around the very top to darken it.

I kept the mask in place to stamp the nativity scene from the Christmas Build a Landscape set, then removed it to add the rest of the colour. There are infill stamps in the set for the leaves and berries, but I opted to use my Polychromo pencils instead to shade them, also softening the moon with a little yellow too.

Just a couple of final steps to finish – adding the sentiment in black Archival, and dotting in the stars with a fine white Posca pen.

I do like combining different stamp sets and the nativity scene works well with this bauble, I think, although the three little images that are part of the bauble stamp set are brilliant too! So how are you inspired to use these colours – they don’t have to be for Christmas! And do check out the inspiration from the rest of the CC&S design team to help get you started – just remember to keep your card clean & simple.

I’m going to share this with a few other challenges, starting with the ‘Christmas greenery’ theme at Inkspirational. Addicted to CAS have got a ‘mask’ theme this time round, and I’ve also picked up the ‘leaves’ option at Simply Clean & Simple.