Starry, Starry Night

Hi guys

Well, this afternoon I've been masking and blending, followed by more masking and blending to create this little card for this week's challenge at Less is More.  The current challenge is to create a one layer card with the theme, 'Starry, starry night'.

When I recently attended the Stitching, Sewing and Hobbycraft Show I stood for ages watching the demonstrator at the Card-io stand, her creations were gorgeous.  I just had to buy a few of the stamp sets and I've combined a couple of them here on this card.  Also, I never realised you could blend with pigment inks (she was using Versa Color) so I've given it a go here.

I started by masking off a rectangle in the centre of my card base with post-it notes.  I then used some scrap paper and cut myself a landscape curve.  I used this to mask off the top section of the card and then blended the pigment inks, gradually building up the colour (at the show she was using a dry baby wipe to blend the colour but I just used some good quality kitchen towel wrapped around my finger).  You can only just make it out in the photo but next I used a pale blue ink with the mask to create some snow banks.  I then placed the masked back in position to stamp the trees, some of which were second generation stamping so they appeared to be further away, then the little cabin and the bushes (which are actually the top of a tree stamp).  I then peeled away the masks and stamped the sentiment.

I then wanted to add a star which I was originally going to do by using embossing powder but I didn't want to risk warping my card base (something which always happens to me!) so instead I squirted out a tiny bit of Tombow glue onto some scrap paper and smooshed it with my finger.  I then used my star stamp to pick up the glue, stamped this on my card and then added some fine glitter.  Some of the really fine bits of glitter decided they wanted to live in the sky elsewhere so I left them to add more sparkle.

Materials used:

• Stamps: Card-io - Winter Walks, Christmas Scenery 2; Paula Pascual - Christmas Messages
• Ink: Versa Color - Orange, Marigold, Imperial Blue, Neptune, Sky Blue; Versafine - Onyx Black
• Glitter: Stampin' Up - Dazzling Diamonds

I am also going to link this card up at the following challenges:

One-Layer Simplicity - Challenge #11 - Home, Sweet Home (wouldn't you just love to live here at Christmas?)

Creative Card Crew - Challenge #74 - Christmas Joy
Crimbo Crackers - Challenge #69 - Clean and Simple
Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge - #202 - Keep it Flat

I love how this card turned out and I'll certainly be trying to create more scenes on my cards now that I know it's not that difficult after all!