Christmas Wreath Card

Hello,

It is a rainy, windy day today.  This card, with the wreath from the Winter Moments stamp set by Penny Black really sets the mood for a day like today.  I just loved the wreath and the bird in this stamp set.

I started out with a piece of square watercolor paper and the wreath stamp.  Using the MISTI stamp positioner, I centered the wreath in the center of the paper and then working quickly, I colored the foliage part of the stamp with Tombow markers from their Primary set, very lightly spritzed it with water and stamped the image onto the paper.  I did this one more time to get good coverage with the greens.  I stamped it a third time but this time without any water just to give more definition to the image.

Next, I colored the red berries with the red Tombow markers in this set, spritzed lightly with water and stamped, then repeated this step until I achieved the color and coverage I was looking for.

After the wreath was dry, I mixed up green watercolor paint with a touch of brown to get the olivey color and carefully painted around and inside the wreath.  Then, with a clean paint brush applied  clean water to the background (away from the wreath), then added a diluted olive green to the background.  The final step was to load my brush with the green and run it around the edge of the panel, creating a framing effect.

Something seemed to be missing.  It was at this point I added the bird.  I love birds and this one was perfect.  I first stamped it in Antique Linen distress ink and then painted it with watercolors.

The assembly of the card was quick and easy.  Starting with a watercolor paper card base, I hand lettered “Merry Christmas with the Finetec Artist Mica paint.  Of course, if hand letting isn’t your thing, then a sentiment stamp of your choosing will work perfectly.  I would really recommend the Delicata Gold ink for stamping your sentiment.  The Delicata inks are sooooo scrumptious!

The final bits of this card are to mount the wreath onto a red cardstock square and add foam on the back of the red to pop it up.  Then mount it onto the card base and add the bird with a square of foam tape.

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