Add a Speckled Background to a Holiday Greenery Card by Jean Okimoto

Give a classic Christmas design a unique autumn look with the new Holiday Greenery Clear Stamps. Invert the poinsettia and berries then watercolor them in warm colors on a caring card for someone special. Hi, Jean Okimoto here with a fall card - and an easy way to add controlled splatters to any design.

Color the smoother side of watercolor paper with a watery wash of Bundled Sage Distress Oxide. Dry it with a heat-tool - alternately heating the back and front of the paper to minimize curling.

Stamp it with Pinecone VersaFine Clair and emboss it with detail clear powder. Press the inks from Tomato Vine Kaleidacolor onto a large acrylic block. Use it as a palette to paint the design.

Stamp the greetings on scraps of the tinted watercolor paper with VersaMark. Emboss them with detail clear powder. When they're cooled, brush them with Shady Lane VersaFine Clair. Remove any residual ink on the embossing with a tissue.

Cut Speckled Background from stencil plastic - the 12" square sheets from The Crafters Workshop are great for this. Remove the diecut, rotate it 180 degrees and cut it again. This adds a second set of holes in different areas. The diecut stencil in the background was cut once. The stencil taped to the paper was cut, rotated and cut again.

Brush or sponge Spanish Moss VersaFine through the stencil onto the stamped paper. Move the stencil around to fill in any areas that need more spots.

Ink-splattering is cool - but my splats don't always land where I want them to. Stenciling lets you control the location and intensity of those little dots. You can even multi-color the dots with different sections of the stencil.

Trim the paper with the 3-¼" Square Basics die. Cut a 1-½" x 3-¾" strip of dark green cardstock. Cut a ¾" x 3-¾" strip of the new crushed copper paper from Shizen Design, sold at Impress.

Attach everything to an A-6 (4-½" x 6-¼") card of Candy Corn cardstock - use foam tape for the greetings. Punch and attach ¼" circles of the crushed copper paper.

Big thanks to everyone from last week's SIMPLY ASIAN and AWESOME BLOSSOM(s) classes at Impress! I appreciate your driving - and flying - to join us. Thanks Jenny - for those flowery bowls of great chocolates - all 6 varieties of them! And thanks to Erin and Lynne for answering all of our questions and finding everything we needed.

No classes this weekend - I'll see everyone again at the HALLOWEEN STASH CARDS class at the Impress Halloween Event on September 21st. We're using great dies, inks and stamps - and mystery items from my stash. Everyone gets some stash extras to make more cards at home. We'll make 5 cards and a treat wrapper.

Thanks for visiting...