Grungy Monday Christmas Card

I always enjoy the Grungy Monday challenges, but this week even more so.  The inspiration for it comes from one of Tim's 2007 12 Tags of Christmas.  And, since I got onboard the 12 Tags train in 2008, this was a new one for me.  Please click HERE to get all the deets straight from the expert's blog.

Now, as I've mentioned, my intent is to use any challenges I enter to create some holiday cards.  Not wanting to seem like a copycat or anything, my first attempt used a snowman rather than the Santa that Tim used as the focal image.  I really don't love it.  At all.  But will share it so you can see where things can go so very wrong.



I probably should have used black ink on the snowman stamp.  There just wasn't enough contrast between the snowman and the background, which is what lead to my outlining the snowman with my black glaze pen.  Now it looks like the snowman was pasted onto the background instead of being the result of some wonderful technique.  The paint resist snowflakes came out nicely, however.

So, I went back to the Santa idea, and used a wonderful vintagey La Blanche stamp that I picked up recently at one of those deal of the day sites.

I'm much happier with this one.  The snowflakes and script are both Tim stamps; the sentiment is an old Stampin' Up stamp (done with black embossing powder).

I enhanced Santa's hat with fired brick and forest moss distress stickles, his face with rock candy distress stickles, and added some little pine cones and berries. 

By the way, I'm taking Jennifer McGuire's Holiday Card Boot Camp and if you need a little jump start to your holiday cards, I totally recommend it.  Although it already began, registration is open, and once you sign up you will have access to the class FOREVER (and you can download the files and videos if you like).