A Very Merry Grungy Christmas!

 Thought I’d just explain what I did on this one, in a blog post, in case there’s any interest! I started by pulling out Unity’s Frosted Lace stamp kit. I decided to stamp and silver emboss it on patterned paper and found a Blue Fern Studio’s Christmas Cheer paper. I then spent an inordinate amount of time, because the paper just absorbs watercolors, adding shading using both a Stabilo pencil and Derwent Inktense navy watercolor pencil with a brush.

Once done, I decided to create a grungy holiday card with it. So, I pulled out a random Unity ledger stamp, a random background ground stamp and Magical (Bliss and Wonder) stamp set. I found a recent Scrapbook.com holiday paper that I could grunge up. I stamped the random stamp all over in a light blue, and the ledger along the sides using Versafine black ink. Then, I stamped and embossed the snowflakes using a combo of silver and clear embossing powders. 

After repeatedly tearing the large snowflake paper and reviewing results against the newly stamped bottom paper, I decided to use a couple random paper scraps to edge the other side. I distressed all papers. 

I decided I wanted to grunge up the large snowflake paper a bit more and started stamping the small snowflakes with Antique Linen and Faded Jeans oxide inks around the edges (not full images or full strength ink). I also used a grungy musical stamp as well. I pulled out a Stamperia stencil, Altenew paste and Silver glitter and added tiny glittery stars randomly. So, now the front has both metallic and glitter effects. 

I added a distressed plain blue paper at the bottom. I then pulled out a Tim Holtz sentiment strip, and the Let It Snow sentiments from the original kit plus Winter Shake Up. Taking advantage of the sentiment on the paper, I added shading to make it stand out. To complete the card, I stapled lace and 3 silver snowflake embellishments on the top right and glued a few more on. Once assembled, it was done!

So.. like grungy holiday cards?… I do! Hope this one is up to the challenge! Thanks for stopping by!