The Frights & Delights Paper Pumpkin continues to entertain me. I know that I promised a Christmas Card alternate. I have to say this was more challenging than I expected, or maybe I made it more difficult than it needed to be. For this design, I decided to use the black tissue paper that came in the kit because I love black and white Christmas cards. I was also dying to try this really cool technique from Melissa Kerman. You can watch her Gilded Faux Silk video here.
Of course, she started with white tissue paper, so already I knew I was going to have to make some modifications. I used the soon to be released, limited time, stamp set Snow is Glistening along with the Snowfall dies that go with it. This set will go on sale to customers on November 1. It is stunning! Don’t worry, I’ll do another post soon, just on these products. Back to the card. I had to use our Whisper White Craft ink to stamp images on the tissue paper. I used the tree that comes in the set (made out of snowflakes!) and the little spray of snowflakes to create a background. I let that dry and then I crumpled it like I was wadding up a used paper napkin.
Next, on a 5-1/4″ x 4″ piece of Basic Black cardstock, I swiped a layer of matte gel medium across the entire surface. This is usually used by painters to keep their acrylic paint wet. I tried other adhesives, this is worth the trip to the local art supply/craft store for this project. While the gel is wet, flatten out the tissue paper, but leave it crinkly and just press it down onto the black paper. Lots of wrinkles are good. Let it dry – for a while.
While it’s drying, use the Joy sentiment from the same stamp set to stamp one of the bag bases from the kit. I stamped it an angle so I could use the Layering Ovals die to cut it out. I stamped a couple of second-generation snowflakes from the stamp set using the Basic Gray in the kit. I used the Stitched Shapes oval to cut a piece of Silver foil to back the sentiment. I also took the blank chunk of silver sticker paper from the kit, from the sheet of Boo!s, to cut out the three snowflakes using the Snowfall dies. This worked out well when I added them later because they were stickers!
Okay, back to our dry stamped wrinkly tissue. Time to make it sparkle through the magic of Versamark and Silver embossing powder. After tapping the entire thing with the Embossing buddy, I lightly, LIGHTLY, dragged the Versamark over the face of the paper trying to ink the raised wrinkles. I also dragged it over the edges of the card to add some framing. Then I coated the entire thing with powder and knocked off the excess. I used that paint brush that we got in the Its a Sarah Thing Paper Pumpkin kit to knock off some of the excess powder so that my tree would be visible. Then, I got out the heat tool and melted all the remaining powder. It almost looks like ice on a window at night. Cool, right?
The twine in the kit was a perfect match for this card and I wrapped it around the bottom third of the card front before I mounted the front to a Whisper White base. The Joy sentiment is adhered with Dimensionals and the little snowflake stickers finished it off. Not simple, but unique and beautiful. I hope you are anticipating your holiday celebrations with great joy!
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