WWC238 - Tristan's "All About Occasions" Challenge

I love our All About Occasions Challenges!  It's so much fun to decide on an Occasion and then to create a card for it.  I've chosen to make another Christmas card simply because I'm going to need them sooner than I'd like to admit.  Of course the fact that I was dying to use the gorgeous Nature's Beauty stamp set and more of that stunning Feels Like Frost Designer Series Paper played a large role in my decision.

The photographic images used on this Designer Paper are simply breathtaking, aren't they?  When I saw this piece, I knew it would be perfect for the darling little bunny image in the Nature's Beauty set.  What I particularly love about the paper is that there is enough white and "empty" space near the bottom to allow for an image to be stamped and coloured, integrating it into the paper as if it had been printed there.  In fact, as well as the bunny, I stamped the little bare twigs of the bushes in the lower right corner.  And they, too, look as if they were part of the paper design, don't they?

I used my coloured pencils and Gamsol to colour the bunny and also to add the same blue to the base of the bunny and twigs so that the shadows appeared to be natural.  Continuing with the simple design, I decided to heat emboss my sentiment using the gorgeous Copper Embossing Powder.  I finished the card by mounting the design onto a copper foil matte and then onto the base of Heavy Whisper White cardstock.

A simple design, but I absolutely love it and hope you do, too.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

I've entered my card into the following challenges:

Lemon Shortbread Challenge #102 - Anything Goes

Crafty Animals Challenge #30 - Anything Goes

CHNC Challenge #454 - Anything Christmas Goes

Crafty Creations Challenges #398 - Anything Goes

WWC#156 - Penny's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

It's a Feminine "Anything Goes" challenge which Penny Hanuszak is hosting this week.  Such fun!  I'm so happy for the excuse to use a stamp set which I've been anxious to try out.

Which stamp set am I talking about?  The Sale-a-bration "Beautiful Peacock" of course.  I've seen some fascinating projects but each time I thought about using it I either came up blank or needed to make something totally different.  Not this time.  This time I'm going all the way.

I began with a piece of Mixed Media paper onto which I scattered some Yellow Brusho crystals and then let them work their magic as I sprayed them with a bit of water.  I love the varying shades of colour which come from one colour of the Brusho.  You never quite know what to expect and that's part of the magic.  Once I had heat dried the colour, I was ready to stamp.

There are some interesting pieces to this particular stamp set.  The peacock is a solid stamp, so you're stamping the colour instead of colouring an outline in.  Since I don't always get a perfect image the first time with a solid stamp, I hauled out my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform so that I could restamp if necessary without having the headache of trying to totally match my initial stamping.  I'm glad I used it because I had to restamp another two times after my initial stamp in order to get the saturated Bermuda Bay colour for my image that I had in mind.   While I had the paper on the platform I chose to stamp the "feathers" that way as well.  I wound up restamping each one so that was a good move.

As you can see from the card, the "feathers" are almost like flourishes or vines.  They do look wonderful, however, especially when you add several together.  I chose to have two Bermuda Bay "feathers" and then added one between them which I heat embossed in Copper embossing powder.  Don't you simply love the contrast?

As you can see, I also stamped a few of the tiny flower images along the "feathers" using Calypso Coral.  I thought the tiny flecks of warm colour in the Yellow Brusho were quite similar in colour to the Calypso Coral.  It doesn't hurt that the warm tones look great next to the Bermuda Bay.

Since I had the one "feather" heat embossed in Copper, I decided to heat emboss the crown and the wing in Copper as well.  As it happened, I had a negative bit of a die-cut lying on my table and it looked almost like the wing.  A couple of snips and it fit perfectly with a band of copper embossing around it.  Serendipitously, the piece had been the retired Bermuda Bay Glimmer paper.  It was clearly meant to be.

As you can see, I also added a few little copper foil hearts.  To finish off, I added tiny pearl embellishments to the centre of each flower as well as to the peacock's eye.

I simply love the finished card, don't you?

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists over at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

I'm also entering my card in the following challenges:

Always Fun Challenges #44 - Anything Goes

Crafty Gals Corner #158 - Anything Goes

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #75 - Anything Goes