‘Twas the Night Card

This card ended up being my 3rd attempt using Unity’s ‘Twas the Night kit and still had issues. The first attempts were plagued by stamping issues and wrong papers and inks. Just one of those days, I guess. After trying other paper, I decided to use watercolor paper. I pulled out Candied Apple Distress ink and stamped on my new Tim Holtz Glass Media Mat, spritzed with water and dipped my paper into it. This is where I noticed the change from my craft mat. Seems a lot more water gets picked up and the color ended up deeper, leaving the paper more saturated and darker than I wanted. I also added some green at the bottom, which ended up looking more brown because the complementary colors ended up mixing a little (because they were Distress inks) and the green ended up too high. I then stamped the tree, bear and dog in black ink. I stamped the ornaments in black and red ink. I stopped there because I wasn’t happy with the look of the background.

The next day, I started again by watercoloring the images using distress inks and adding red glitter ink on the ornaments, collar and bird. I moved to Oxide inks for better coverage over the red background color. I painted the floor green, and then used a long stamp from the 4/11 KOTM kit to stamp a better matching green in the same area and then used clear embossing ink and an Itty Bitty background stamp to add Snowflake Tinsel embossing powder. I was happier with that look. I then took an embossing pen and added dots on the tree and added more snowflake tinsel embossing powder. (Not too happy with this powder as the tinsel part doesn’t stick well, leaving white blotches. It did leave a glimmer on the leaves though.) I pulled out white acrylic paint to lighten background areas that were too dark. This worked very well. I used pens in a few spots to darkened lines and colors and add shadows on the ornaments.

I embossed the sentiment, found coordinating background papers, put together all the die cut papers, added fussy cut candy canes and sequins and called the card done.

I think I salvaged all the fails on this one. I must admit this stamp kit is so far out of my style that half the problem is operator error ;)! I don’t recommend my techniques other than as lessons of what not to do. But the kit is adorable and I’ll have to try it again!