As You See It 116 DT

This week, at As You See It, Amanda has set a theme challenge. You might expect that at Christmas, a Santa challenge would be quite normal. And it is, yet it threw me into a bit of a tizzy as I simply don't have any Santa stamps! Hard to believe, I know!

I'm not a punch art sort of card-maker and couldn't even find any Santa DSP in my scrapbooking scraps box! However, earlier in the year, I'd entered a starry night challenge and one of the ladies at my card class commented that it would make an excellent Christmas card. That stuck with me, so when my lovely upline came to my rescue and lent me Holiday Homes, from last year's Christmas catalogue, I came up with this...

I am also going to enter this card into the challenge at AAA Cards, where the challenge is Silent Night Christmas Cards.

Update

Since posting this card, a few people have asked how I did the sky. Well, I was playing around at my desk for a starry night challenge earlier in the year and came up with this. Really, it's unbelievably easy...

All you need are sponges and a punched circle of card to act as a moveable mask. I marked the centre of the card to act as a pivot point for my circle. 

Start with one colour and sponge against the edge of the the circle. I come in from the outer edge of the card, starting sponging on the scrap paper and working inwards, to avoid getting blobs of ink.

Move the circle and do the same thing with the second ink colour. It doesn't matter if you go over the previous inking, as long as you keep your touch light. It's always better to sponge lightly and build up more colour if you want it than to go in heavy-handed (or heavy-inked) from the start.

Then, move the circle, line it up with your centre mark and do the same thing again with the first colour.

Keep going around.

When you've finished, cut it out with a framelit.

In my original card, I stamped the house rooves first and masked them before doing any of this, but it didn't look right so I stamped the houses silver on black, cut them out then added them in so they were in silhouette.

In this card, I also stamped over the top of the circle with the grungy stars stamp from Holly Jolly Greetings using silver ink before adding my Santa sleigh. Other times, I've added in trees or masked off a hillside to create an horizon line first. Lots of possibilites...

So - please have a play along with this week's challenge at As You See It.

Further Update: Delighted to have this card win first place at AAA Challenge.

Ingredients
Card: Island Indigo, Whisper White, Silver glimmer
Stamps: Holdiay Homes, Holly Jolly Greetings
Inks: Night of Navy, Island Indigo, Tuxedo Black, Silver
Other: MFT circle dot die, dimensionals, rhinestones, sponges, circle framelit