Tuesday 8 November 2016

Groovi Christmas Wreath

This card is the result of my first attempt using the fantastic new Christmas Wreath Groovi plates designed by Linda Williams for Claritystamp.  I used a mixture of the Woven Wreath and Twiggy Wreath plates, together with a banner from the Christmas Banners set. Even though I personalised it for my parents, the colouring, matting and layering took longer than the parchment and white work.
 
I started with the banner, adding the Merry Christmas from the Alphabet Picture Frame plate.  I then added the poinsettia, bauble and bow grouping from the Twiggy Wreath plate before using the ribbon twists and twiggy wreath from the Woven Wreath plate to complete the wreath itself.  The dangling baubles were added next, before using the outermost and third circle in from the Circle Nesting plate in order to frame the image.  The 'Health, Peace & sweet content be yours' sentiment is from another of the banners on the Christmas banner plate and finally Mum & Dad were added to the dangling baubles using the alphabet on the Universal Framer plate.  The hearts at the end of the sentiment were added free hand to balance things up.
I carefully added white work to the ends of the banner, the bow and ribbon twists and filled in all the dots on the baubles and the dangling chains.  The distress markers used were Candied Apple, Salty Ocean, Fossilised Amber, Gathered Twigs, Twisted Citron for the border and a mixture of Peeled Paint and Mowed Lawn for the Poinsettia leaves. I also added two freehand lines to the ends of the bow to match the ribbon twists on the wreath.
Once cut out, the image was matted onto a piece of pearlescent gold sparkly paper using narrow double sided tape behind the coloured sections and trimmed to size. Another piece of the same gold paper was die cut using one of the Double Pierced Noble Circles by Creative Expressions, creating a narrow border.  This makes the baubles stand out.
The next size up die added a mat in bright blue; two of the Double Pierced Noble Square dies from Set B cut more gold and blue to finish the mats.  However, once I laid everything out, I felt that the change from circle mats to square mats left the bottom corners rather bare.  I overcame this by layering up a narrow, satin, blue ribbon onto a matching, slightly wider, organza ribbon and wrapping them around the corners of the gold, square mat.  Two layered, red poinsettias cut using the smallest dies from the new Poinsettia Additions die set by Creative Expressions and held together with tiny gold brads, finished off the bottom, right corner.  Once matted up, I felt that the green of the circle frame needed an echo, so added a very narrow mat in bright green, before gluing the whole 'topper' onto a 20cm x 20cm white card. 

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