Polar Express

I love the colors for this week's Color Dare, but they make me think of Thanksgiving and I need Christmas cards...a lot of Christmas cards.  Every year I try to whittle down my list, but every year it stays around 75 cards.  I have 15 ready. 

Yeah.

So, I racked my brain until I could find a way to make Smokey Plum, Goldrush and Olive Christmassy.

The background doily is from one of the stamp sets that coordinates with the Artbooking Cricut cartridge.  I stamped it with Versamark ink on Kraft paper.  The rest of the stamps are from Polar Bear Holiday.  The bear and sentiment were stamped in Cocoa pigment ink.  I used clear embossing powder over the bear only because I wanted a barrier to my watercoloring.  The bear himself was colored with Copics, but the sunshine around him is Goldrush ink watered down and painted. 

To get good coverage of the Olive snowflakes on the Kraft, I used pigment ink.  It stays truer to the color when using it on a colored background.

The picture doesn't show it well, but the bear's scarf is a bit of Smokey Plum reinker, Pearl Paint and water.  I dyed the ribbon with Smokey Plum, so I had some leftover dyed water to play with.  The skates and white parts of the hat were painted with the Pearl Paint directly.

When I got done with the main card, I thought I'd add a few sequins.  Well...hmmm.  I couldn't seem to stop.  At all.

Yeah.

Anyway, I think he turned out really cute.  And he will certainly be added to my stash of Christmas cards.  One more down, sixty to go.

Until next time,
Becca