Shaving Cream Background Technique; Leafy Acanthus; Flourished Noel

Hello to you on this wonderful Friday!!!  We are in the midst of Christmas in July here at Quietfire.  Hopefully you are getting inspired to start your Christmas cards!!  

This card began with a shaving cream technique background (step outs at the bottom) I had sitting in my crafty area that was just calling my name to be stamped and the new Leafy Acanthus Background stamp seemed like the perfect image to use.  I stamped it with black ink, embossed it with clear detail powder and used Distress Markers (Shabby Shutters; Twisted Citron; Mowed Lawn; and Festive Berries with a waterbrush) to color it in.  This was just quick coloring using multiple greens with some splashes of red to make it easy and beautiful.  Edges inked and distressed finished the panel wonderfully.

 Noel, from the Flourished Noel set,  was stamped with Archival Ink Red Geranium, die cut with an old oval die, inked around the edges with Distress Ink Mowed Lawn, and then distressed.  The lace (Tim Holtz Idea-ology) was colored with Distress inks and water.  I had my Noel piece a little to close when working with the lace and when I sprayed water onto the Distress Ink on my craft sheet I got speckled color on the piece.  A happy accident that I left!!  

Shaving Cream Background Technique

These are not pictures for the actual background I used, just something similar.

*Put shaving cream on a styrofoam plate (or whatever you'd like to use).  Smooth out somewhat - it doesn't have to be completely smooth.

*Spray with color.

*Marble color.  I used a skewer. 

*Press your paper into the shaving cream by bending the paper slightly, pressing the center in first, allowing the paper to lay down and pressing everywhere for good contact.  If you just lay the paper straight down, you can get air pockets where the paper doesn't touch and so no color transfers.  Pull your paper up, scrap off the shaving cream back onto your plate, re-swirl and print again.  

*This picture shows the 2nd printing with the shaving cream is still on.

*Here the shaving cream is scraped off. 

*After scraping most of the shaving cream off, use a paper towel to buff your paper to get any remaining shaving cream off - buff both sides of the paper.