Friday, December 5, 2008

Wake me for Christmas


This card is a complete labour of love. I saw that for this week's MFT Who's That Girl challenge, the set to use was Merry Christmas, which I just happen to own and it wasn't even inky yet...groan! So it fell into my 'to create' pile. 

I knew I wanted to paper piece the chair so I chose my patterned paper accordingly, with more low-key colours this time. It's My Minds Eye Snowed In line. The image was stamped with Memento black onto Gina K pure luxury white (I sound like a parrot repeating myself for each card, but I figure that when I'm reading people's posts I like to know what they're using. Plus, parrots are birds, and birds are good in my world. grin!)

First I coloured the girl and the tree with Copics. Next I set about paper piecing the chair. Then I looked at the roll of wrapping paper, trying to decide what shade to colour it, when I had the great idea to paper piece it too (that's where all the red comes in, another paper in the Snowed In line). As soon as the glue was dry under all my little pieces (didn't want to loose them you know) I realized that if I paper pieced the wrapping paper then surely I should be paper piecing the gifts under the tree. Am I insane??? 
Do you see how teeny tiny those little sections are on the gifts? I can't include the ribbon you know...it needs to be a different colour. Verdict's in...I am insane! I pieced and glued each of those tiny sections, including the wee little triangle on the first gift. Now, I do like cutting, but this was beyond ridiculous, even for me. LOL!

When I was colouring the wall (on the image not in my stamp room) I couldn't get the colour to be even, no matter how hard I tried. So I looked at it for a minute (keep in mind this was the last thing left to colour after cutting and adhering all those little sections, so there was NO way I was starting over) and I thought about a faux finish. Painters do it on walls, so it should look good on my image. The only one I could think of (that didn't require other colours, cause I was already freaking out at this point that I'd ruined it) was the suede finish from Ralph Lauren. I know it's applied in an "X" motion all over the wall, so I made random X's all over the wall and this is what I ended up with. It really does look suede-ish in real life!
From there out the rest of the card was a breeze. I added some red glitter and gold gemstones to the tree, an embellishment made from a Martha punched snowflake and button, a piece of SU kraft taffeta ribbon and that was it...finally!

I really do like how this card turned out, but it's definitely a one-of-a-kind card!

Thanks for stopping by!
Karen

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Karen!!! So thrilled to see you are blogging :) Wonderful to see your works of art here.

See you in cyberspace!

Leslie said...

Yes you are insane...insanely talented! I commend you on your cutting skills - I'd never have the patience to cut out all those presents or faux-finish the walls. You are amazing. It truly is a one of a kind card. Beautiful!

Unknown said...

Oh my goodness, is this ever BEAUTIFUL! Amazing job, and so much work. But, I totally adore it!