Season's Greetings Holiday Card

This is likely to be my last holiday card this year--where has the year gone?!--and so I decided to try a new technique and a new colour scheme.

I started with a Gray Granite cardstock base, which is one of my favourite neutrals but I haven't pulled out out of the cupboard for months it seems!  To that I added a 4" x 5.25" Basic White panel, which I embossed with the Timeworn Texture embossing folder and distressed the edges.  Rather than centre it on the card base, which is what I would typically do, I decided to go way out of my comfort and glue it to the top right corner, so there is a 0.25" border on the left and bottom.  Turns out letting go of everything being centred can have some great results!

I used a new technique to make my wreath.  I started by using two circle dies to cut a "base" for my wreath, so I knew where to adhere my die cut leaves.  I die cut a bunch of leaves from the Seasonal Labels dies from watercolour paper, and then added my colour.  Usually I would watercolour a large sheet and then die cut, but by die cutting first I was able to be more specific about where the colour went.  I used Gray Granite, Smoky Slate and Crumb Cake inks with my Aquapainter to watercolour the die cuts.  

I then splattered them using my Blends in the same colour, which gave a more dense version of the colour.

I added a many-layered twine bow and some Pearls to decorate the wreath, and then stamped my sentiment, from the Christmas to Remember stamp set, in Gray Granite on a scrap of Basic White that I trimmed with my Paper Snips.

Because I built my wreath on the circle base, I was able to glue the wreath to the card base with glue just on the circle.  This allows the leaves of my wreath to naturally sit up from the base and gives tonnes of dimension without the added bulk of dimensionals.

For the inside of my card I stamped the coordinating leaf image from the Christmas Season stamp set in each of the three colours (Gray Granite, Crumb Cake and  Smoky Slate), along with a sentiment from the A Wish For Everything stamp set.

At first I wasn't sure if this colour palette was working out, but it's grown on me a lot and I think it provides such a nice contrast to the typical very busy and bright colours and patterns for the holidays.  I'm also thinking it would make an amazing starting point for an Easter card--somehow that twine bow keeps making think of a bird's nest, and the muted speckled colours remind me of eggs!  I'll let you know if a spring card works out.  :)

Happy Crafting,

Barb