How to Create a Sparkling Christmas Card with Perfect Paints: Day Nine of the 12 Days of Christmas
Hi, friends! It's Walter here with my second project for our 12 Days of Christmas celebration. I love to create all kinds of crafts - but my heart always goes back to card making. It's such a meditative process for me. A time when I'm in the moment, mindful, and am guided by my intuition. That's exactly how this beautiful Christmas card came about. I sat down with my Perfect Paints products, looked through stencils, selected some ephemera that spoke to me, and just started to create. I was guided by a desire to come up with a design that would showcase the beauty of the Perfect Paints X-Small Glass Bead Gel and thought that a classic Christmas globe ornament would be a great choice. Add in some branches, a sentiment, and a beautiful background and you have a truly gorgeous card. Let's get started!
I used the following Perfect Paints products to create it:
A2 size (4.25"x5.5") Kraft card base
Green Mirrored Cardstock Panel (or color of your choice), 1/8" smaller in both width and height than card base
White Cardstock Panel, 1/8" smaller in both width and height than mirrored cardstock panel
Piece of Chipboard for Die Cutting (scrap or any size)
Stacking Circle Dies
49 and Market Christmas Spectacular General Laser Elements (or any Christmas ephemera)
TCW 6x6 Distressed Lace Stencil
Two Small Pieces of Gold String (or any color of choice)
Pixie Spray or Tape (optional)
Gold Sequins (or any color of choice)
Directions
I started by cutting my card base and panels. The card base is a standard A2 size (4.25"x5.5"). I then cut the green mirrored cardstock to be 1/8" shorter in both width and height and cut the white card panel to be 1/8" smaller than the mirrored green panel in both width and height. As you can see, each of the pieces is just slightly smaller than the previous one to create a stacking effect when assembled.
I assembled the card base and used double sided tape to adhere the green mirrored card panel to the Kraft card base.
Now I was ready to create a beautifully stenciled background. I wanted to use a lighter color that wouldn't make the background too busy and take away from the ornaments. Perfect Paints Iridescent Gold Pearl Plaster was the perfect choice for this! It has just a light touch of gold to it and also adds a touch of shine. I sprayed some Pixie Spray onto the back of stencil and adhered it down to the white card panel. Pixie Spray makes stenciling much easier by providing a temporary bond between the stencil and the cardstock that doesn't tear the cardstock when removed. You may also use a low tack tape like Pixie Tape or Post-It Tape if you don't have Pixie Spray.
I then used a palette knife to spread the Perfect Paints Iridescent Gold Pearl Plaster over the stencil. I applied it in one direction, from top to bottom, to create a nice smooth pattern on the cardstock.
Once dry, I adhered the card panel to the base with double sided tape. I chose a sentiment, branches and bow from the 49 and Market Christmas Spectacular General Laser Elements and used craft glue to glue them into place on the card.
It was time to start on making the ornaments! I used a circle die to cut two circles out of chipboard. I made the circles the same size, but you may decide to make them different sizes. I applied a coat of Perfect Paints Cayenne Polishing Plaster to one circle and Perfect Paints Frosted Pine Polishing Plaster to the other. I chose to use Polishing Plaster on the ornaments because I wanted a heavier body on them that would add a pearlescent shine similar to the background of the card.
Once dry, I added double sided foam tape to the back of each as well as a small piece of gold string to act as the hanger. I used a small drop of craft glue to adhere the gold string to the branch.
With the ornaments adhered down to the card, I used my palette knife to add a coating of the Perfect Paints X-Small Glass Bead Gel onto each of them. The beauty of this product is that you only need a thin layer to add a huge amount of sparkle and shine to your project. Look at how much it adds once it dries!
The final step was adding the gold sequins to give the ornaments a little bit of a design and adding a few pearl sequins to the card base. The card is complete, and I'm truly happy with the finished piece! The light gold stenciled background adds a soft, pretty touch that doesn't detract from the beautiful ornaments. It's an elegant design full of shimmer and shine!
Thanks for spending some time with me on the blog today. I wish you and your family the happiest of holidays filled with lots of love and magical moments. Until next time . . . be well!
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