12 Cards of Christmas T!m Holtz Style Card 1

Hi Everyone. I am starting a bit late and this is my first go at using T!m's 12 Tags of Christmas techniques for myself. Not the first year I have followed his blog though lol. As I was looking at the tags I was thinking what could I use them for? Scrap pages, sure, but I wanted a more immediate use for my hopefully lovely creations. So I thought why not cards. I get to make some pretty things and then gift them on to my friends and family :)

Here begins my 12 Cards of Christmas! My Muse

Card 1
The first step as always is deciding what direction to take. I started with the background and made it up as I went. I really had no idea what I was going to do. I didn't have a lot of the things used on the first tag so I started by going through my embossing folders and texture plates. I chose the Sizzix Snowflakes texture plate.

I then choose some pale blue cardstock from my DCWV White Core stack thinking I would be sanding a little later to reveal the core...

 I then used versamark dazzle straight onto the side of the texture plate I was going to be using

and ran it through my trusty bug ( I had to do this twice as the first time I forgot the versamark! lol), I added a couple of extra pieces of heavy paper to give a deeper emboss.

Then I sprinkled Hero Arts White Embossing powder over my cardstock and used a paintbrush to remove it from areas I wanted no embossing powder. I lightly ran my finger over some places in the background to remove a little bit more embossing powder.

 I heat embossed, then used Pearl-Ex Macropearl all over the cardstock and re-heated. I thought this would add a lovely sparkle effect to the white "snow". After that I very lightly ran my Tumbled Glass Distress Ink pad over the raised areas of the card and used my Ranger Distressing Tool along all its edges.
I then used Sure Cuts a Lot and some free poinsettia svg's I found online to create some flowers.

I cut the flowers and some leaves from Fundamentals 1 using my ecraft. My flowers and leaves are roughly 2" and 1.5". I used three of each size for the flowers and three 2" and two 1.5" leaves.

At this point I have to say WOOOOHOOOOO, my first proper project using my newest ecraft. And it works!!! lol... I will not tell you what number ecraft this is for me. But thank goodness I didn't give up :)

I again used Tumbled Glass Distress ink and my Ink Distressing Tool to lightly colour around the outside edges of my flowers.

I wanted a deeper cut around my petals so took a small pair of scissors and cut in between each one. I recently bought some tools off ebay that I found in the nail art section. Nail art dotting pen or marbelising tool. I got a packet of 5 for less than $2au. I used these to add lines and definition to my flowers and leaves.

I pinched each petal of my flowers and did the same for the leaves.

After defining my flowers and leaves i spritzed them with home made pearl glimmer mist. My mist consists of water, gum arabic and Pearl-Ex in Macropearl, Miccropearl and Pearl White to give them the same wintery shine as my background.

I used the Adirondack Paint Dabber in Snow Cap around the outside of my petals and leaves to give another snow like look. After the paint dried I went over the edges on both the flowers and leaves with a Zig Embossing Pen with a brush tip. I used a paintbrush to add extra Macropearl Pearl-Ex over the embossing liquid.

I used Glossy Accents to layer a small and large poinsettia together. I used more in the centre of the small flower and added some very small yellow seed beeds. I got these in a pack of 12 small different colour pots from a shop called Go-Lo in Australia.

I used the piece of cardstock I ran through the bug the first time sans versamark to stamp and emboss Merry Christmas onto, again in white. I cut around the embossed words and used my snow cap paint dabber around the edge and added even more Macropearl Pearl-Ex. What can I say, I love sparkles. I also thought it gave a lovely twinkly snow like effect :)

I worked out my placement of leves and flowers and adhered them with more glossy accents. I decided i wanted merry christmas to be raised and used foam squares to raise it off my background.

I mounted the background on another piece of the same colour DCWV cardstock using double sided tape.
I then used double sided tape to adhere it to my plain white card base :)

And there we have it. My take on Tim's first 12 Tags of Christmas Tag in card format. I hope you enjoyed my tutorial and like the card. Thanks for looking.
Happy Scrappin'
Purple