Holiday Extravaganza

Yesterday's Holiday Extravaganza was a great success! 5 Close To My Heart Independent Consultants (including me) hosted 40 paper crafting woman to make 15 holiday projects. We had 6 hours to work and broke for a short time for a yummy lunch of pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, cole slaw, fruit, and treats. What a great day!

In January, we will hold a similar event-- Crazy For Cards! We will make 15 cards. Registration has begun. Sign up today.

Over the next few days, I will post all 15 of the Holiday Extravaganza projects. Let's begin with my sunset card.

I love this technique that I found on Pinerest and learned to do it from Sheila Bennet.  

Start with a piece of Colonial White paper. Sponge Honey ink in the center. Then sponge Slate ink around the edges. Remember that while using a sponge, you need to keep moving. Make circle motions while applying the ink. If you just stamp the sponge it will look like a sponge mark.

It takes a little while for the ink to become dark on the paper. Several of my customers did a light coating of ink and it turned out really nice too. You need to play with the ink and decide what shade you would like. 

Next, add Sunset ink in between and blend the colors together. Since the inks are water based, they blend together nicely. At this point you need to decide if you need more ink, more blending, or be done.

When you have the sunset the way you want it. Stamp your trees. I used the Grateful Trees stamp set.

Love these trees! I stamped one tree with black ink and then stamped again without re-inking (second generation stamp) making it look like that tree is farther away. 

The card is backed on barn red paper and a little burlap ribbon is added as decoration. Adhere the burlap ribbon with liquid glass to make sure it sticks well.

And there you have it! The complete card! It takes a little time to blend the colors but it really quite easy. Give it a try today and have some fun with ink and paper.