NOEL

I desperately longed for the Clarity 'Noel Frame' stamp for absolutely ages and finally bought it at the NEC.

Couldn't wait to use it of course:

I used:

- A6 black card blank, with a sliver cut from the bottom edge

- silver and blue (SU's 'Marina Mist') backing card from the snippets folder

- used the Noel Frame stamp by Clarity, and also Clarity Silk finish white card stock. First of all I followed Barbara Gray's advice and  cleaned off the blue 'inking' which defines the stamp, using nail polish remover, thereby keeping my Versamark Embossing ink pad nice and clean - err, and in the process removing half my nail polish, duh :(. Carefully dusted over with an anti-static bag (a light brushing of talcum powder would do just as well) and then I stamped the NOEL in Versamark and embossed it with 'Sterling Silver' powder. Heat embossing and your truly have never really gotten on but I followed Barb's way and heated from underneath - bingo, success!

- phew, after a lie down to recover from that it was time to tackle the image. I'd been watching one of Barbara's DVDs and had all the tips if not the talent. To do the image within the frame you just stamp the Noel onto a post-it and carefully, and slightly generously, trim out the centre of the letter 'O' and dispose of it. The resulting template then covers the embossed Noel leaving the centre of the 'O' exposed and protects the rest of the card stock while you play with the image, still with me?

- for the background tore a hill template from some spare paper and used Tim Holtz 'Faded Jeans' distress ink and a small duster brush for the sky plus a teensy touch where the deer would go

- then stamped the trees using a Black Archival ink pad and a little set of  trees, double stamped from the 'Northern Pine' set by Inkylicious, also from the NEC trip

- next the little deer was also stamped in Black Archival ink - have had this for years and finally discovered it's by 'Stampscapes', called 'Doe - 229A'

- finally just added some dots with a white Signo pen for the snow flakes

For a first try, I ended up with two successful cards the same - err, and two spoiled images in the bin. But, there's nothing like having a play and learning from mistakes :)

Di
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