The start of something new.....

......well as you probably know I'm head of Sheena's Design Team 'The Inkoids' and a few weeks ago I had an idea.......the team get a bit worried sometimes when I come up with ideas I think!! Lol!  Anyway I thought it would be a good idea if as a team we did regular projects using Sheena's products but instead of just from the current release like we usually do these projects would be using things from her large catalogue of stamps, dies, folders etc.  So much of what Sheena designs is drawn with the idea that they will coordinate with past releases so we thought we'd like to do  some projects showing just that.......showing how all the releases mix together to form a library of creativity.....gives us a good excuse to play as well! So every Monday and Thursday one member of the Inkoids will be publishing a project on their blogs/facebook page etc.

Thought as it was my idea I better kick it all off, so I have a Christmas card to share with you today using last years Christmas Perfect Partner stamps and dies (Baubles, lights, holly), this years Booklovers Christmas stamps (background holly, wording), Man's Best Friend stamp set (the dog) from The Little Bit Sketchy range, the Rock stamps (grunge band set, background stamps) and some Pebeo Foiling.

I started off by stamping the dog from 'Man's Best Friend' using Watering Can Archival Ink onto a piece of Sheena stamping card (approx 7 1/2")......

Then using some cut 'n' dry foam and some distress inks (barn door, wild honey, twisted citron, pumice stone, hickory smoke) I blended the background keeping most of the bright colour to the top left corner where the decorations and lights were going to go. The opposite corner I kept pretty neutral just adding the merest hint of colour. I also started to add some background stamping to the coloured area using some of the stamps from 'Grunge Band' .....

I painted the dog using a mixture of Walnut Stain and Pumice Stone Distress Ink, also adding some reds and yellows to his head and chest to indicate reflected light from the decorations......

Added a few 'light spots' by doing a bit of faux bleaching......splash on a few water droplets, leave for a few seconds and then blot with some tissue. Then I stamped some holly (from Christmas Child) around the edges and some wording (from Christmas Notes). Both were stamped in Watering Can Archival and then some colour added to the holly using distress inks.......

At this point I flicked some droplets of Pebeo Gilding Liquid over the surface and put on one side for it to 'dry' (needs to go clear before you can add the foil). To make the decorations I die cut some Holly, Baubles and Lights from last years Christmas Perfect Partner range then stamped them with the corresponding stamps (except the baubles, I left them un-stamped) and coloured with Distress Inks. For the baubles I blended over distress ink and then lightly highlighted the embossed areas with gold gilding wax. To give some more shimmer I very lightly rubbed over some of the embossed areas with Pebeo Gilding Paste and once that was dry (clear) I added some gold foil highlights.  Gives the baubles a nice vintage look I think......

To finish off I added to foil to the droplets of gilding liquid I had applied earlier, layered up the panel onto first some black card and then some gold mirror card before mounting it onto an 8" white card blank.  I used 3d glue gel to attach all the die cuts, shaping them to give extra movement before sticking in place. The final touches was to use a Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle pen on the lights and some gold Stickles on the edge of some of the holly leaves.

Thanks for stopping by,

Donna xx