Beachy Christmas with Joy Clair

Hello there inky friends!  I hope you're having a great week.  I'm in the mood to for a bit of Christmas!  I love COLD, SNOWY Christmas' but I know some folks would rather spend their Christmas in steamy hot locations...so this card might be right up their boardwalk.  ha ha.

I created this project that features two new stamp sets:  Penguin Tropical Christmas and the background stamp Christmas Lights.  I pushed the lights way back into the background of my paper to give a hint of lights as well as create another layer of depth in my project.  To create my background, I stamped the Christmas Lights onto blue cardstock then drybrushed some light ivory acrylic paint over it.  After that dried, I colored the lightbulbs with some copic markers and traced around them with a black marker.  Next, I drybrushed the ivory paint over the colored lines and allowed the black ink to spread with my paintbrush.  It helped create a "grainy" effect, perfect for my background.

Next up was creating the adorable penguin in her festive beachwear.  After I fussy cut her parts, I assembled them and set her aside.

Next, I worked on the water.  I added several different colors and textures of paper to give the water some additional movement and depth.  I also added a "sandy" layer by tearing the paper.  When my water was done, I stamped the sentiment onto a white panel and set it onto the design using foam squares.  The tree was next.  I stamped, colored and cut the tree then assembled it onto the card.  

This is such a fun combo of stamps to use for Christmas cards and While I really don't care for a warm Christmas (I LOVE SNOW!), I can say that this card is already assigned to a specific pair of family members who LOVE the yucky heat.  LOL

Thanks for hopping over!  See you again!