peaceful poinsettias

it's the classic crafty dilemma: you want to play with stamps and colorbursts in your art journal, but you need to make a christmas card. the solution? figure out a way to make the art journal playing session into a card. thankfully, we're still celebrating "peace on earth" at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and since the requirements are to use the word "peace" on your card OR use a peace sign OR create a scene that evokes peace, i found that by choosing the first one, it was definitely a do-able task:

poinsettia stamps, colorburst pigment powders and liquid metals: ken oliver crafts; background stamps and inks: tim holtz/ranger; peace die: spellbinders; cardstock: bazzill; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

since i knew this was going to be a christmas card, i tailored my choice of colors and stamps accordingly. for my background, i got out alizarin crimson, cadmium scarlet, fuchsia and lime colorburst, and added in liquid metals in verdi gris and iron oxide. i had a lot of fun sprinkling and spritzing the colors to get a panel that was mostly red with some pops of green in it. then i set to with a few text and pattern stamps in various shades of red and green to add more dimension. by then i had a panel which looked like this:

after everything was well and truly dry, i went back and stamped the poinsettias in the reddest portions of the panel and embossed them in white. i had been planning to diecut the poinsettias --it's a ken oliver cut-n-color set-- and stamp the word "peace" in an oversized alphabet, but i decided that i really liked the whole panel as it was, so i changed tactics and diecut the sentiment instead. i cut it from a deep red cardstock and it looked good, but it didn't stand out quite as much as i'd've liked. in digital design, when this happens, you just add a drop shadow. as soon as my mind registered that fact, i realized it was possible to do that irl, if i cut it again, from a scrap of black cardstock and layered it, just slightly offset, behind the red. so that's what i did. problem solved.

stephanie has also got a beautiful new card to show you. i hope you'll hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and see that right now!