Christmas card two

An oldie, but a goody  today.
I was inspired to make this card yesterday after spending Friday  teaching lots of techniques to a new stamper.
Having refreshed my own memory on lots of different techniques I decided to try this technique again.....it's  basically sponging  through a mask, then over stamping.

I began by cutting out an oval from scrap paper, I discarded the oval centre  as it was the negative I wanted to work with.
 I applied some two way glue to the back of the aperture mask and allowed it to dry.

Once the glue was completely dry,  I placed it over  a piece of white card stock and pressed it down  gently to secure it to the card.
I tore a very narrow strip from the sticky edge of a post it note,  (just so that it no longer had a straight edge but still had lots of sticky left along the edge)   

 I stuck the post it note across the  middle of the aperture  and began to sponge  Barely Banana ink ( a warm yellow ink) from the centre of the post it note and worked upwards  in an arch shape.
  I applied Apricot Appeal ink from the sides and  worked around the yellow arch and blending the edges of the two colours.
 I added a touch of Pretty in Pink ink around the arch and blended it the Apricot .  t
That was followed by a few light strokes of Lavender Lace  ink around the arch, again blending the edges. The  final colour was Smokey Slate at the very top of the arch and a touch at the edges.

 I removed the post it note and then began to sponged small amounts of Smokey Slate ink over the edges of the bottom half of the oval and worked the ink in towards the middle.

When I was happy with the effect,  I inked up two thirds of the  row of trees  stamp from the "Lovely as a tree" stamp set in black ink  and stamped over the sponged area, positioning the stamp slightly over to the right side.


I inked up the pine tree stamp and stamped it on the left  side of the card, overlapping the sponged oval.


 I added some glitter glue to the branches of the trees on one of the cards. When the gltter glue was dry, I added a greeting.

Hot Air Balloon Card

This hot air balloon was made using the heart punch from S.U. I punched out 5 hearts folded them in half and glued them together . On reflection I think 7 or 8 hearts would have have been better.

The background was created with sponge daubers , torn paper bashful blue, pear pizzazz and old inks. The mini trees on the hills were stamped using the little leaf stamp from the vintage vogue stamp set.

The conifer stamp is one I have owned for years from another company. The pine needles in top corner was one I bought second hand on Ebay from a lady in Canada, I believe.