Wise Men Christmas Card

Hello!  Here's a little something I've been working on for a few evenings this week.  It took me a while to get the composition the way I wanted it (still not 100% sure - suggestions welcomed), but I have settled on this.  I started by feeling like brayering some chalk ink (all Colorbox Fluid Chalk except where noted), so I selected a range of cream/ivories (Alabaster and Bisque), greens (Dark Moss, Warm Green, Deep Green) and reds (Tomato Sauce - Memories, Maroon).  I brayered on the colours, starting with creams, then greens and reds last.  Then I heat set with my iron and stamped the magi collage ("to follow the star" by Penny Black) and embossed it in black.

***insert 24 hours of hemming and hawing and consulting and experimenting here ***

Next, I stamped the damask patchily (on purpose, and is that even a word?) in Champagne Encore ink on black paper and cut out the ornament shape using a Spellbinders die.  I edged the inside of the frame with gold leaf pen and stuck the stamped image to the back.  This all got mounted on a lovely muted champagne gold mat, and mounted on a red card base.  It's fairly thin and flat and good for mailing (is that the card equivalent of "nice personality"???).  I might try adding some dots of liquid pearls.  Sometimes they finish off a design.

In non-stamping news, my youngest daughter, age 6, lost her second tooth tonight.  I have really been enjoying hearing her new windy sibilants and get no end of a charge out of asking her to say "swimsuit".  Fortunately, she is very obliging.

In quilting news, I have pretty much gotten the hang of my Stepping Stones pattern and am now well past needing to pick out every seam.  On the last block, I only had to pick out two of ten, and one of those was just because I hadn't had my coffee yet and was experimenting with whether I can quilt before breakfast.  (I'm trying to find my best time of day for quilting.  So far it's not looking like before breakfast, after work before dinner, after dinner, or later in the evening.  That leaves during the day time when I am supposed to be at work.  I think I would have a hard time explaining what my sewing machine was doing at work.  I am already known for bringing Tombows and Copics and colouring at lunch time, I don't think I need to add quilting to the list. That said, I was eyeing up one of the board room tables as being ideal for pinning the sandwich together.  That table has to be at least six feet across and at least twice that long.  It's massive.)

Well, back to the brayering - I plan to make a number of these for the craft show in early November.  I know that's months and months and months away.  Here we are in summer and that's practically Christmas, but when I look at the calendar in terms of actual days, it's frighteningly close

Thanks for stopping by!