Have you ever gone on Pinterest and scene the Victorian-inspired Christmas trees in shades of pastel pink?

I wanted to recreate that in Christmas card form, complete with a cozy fire and napping kitty. 

Before I get into my tips for this card, I want to give a big shoutout to Scrapbook.com who sent me a bunch of their newest products to play with! I used the Home for Christmas stamp for this project. Now on to this tutorial!

If you have never watercolored your stamped images before, it's important to remember that you have to stamp with an archival ink. Because I was only watercoloring the fireplace and cat, I used the Distress Archival Ink in vintage photo and black soot. So start with stamping your fireplace onto a flat card front and your cat onto a scrap piece--we'll be fussy cutting this cutie out later so use up your stash of scraps for this!

Next, pull out these shades of Distress Ink for my Victorian color palette: victorian velvet, ripe persimmon, ground espresso and black soot. Smoosh a bit of ink onto a glass craft mat or work surface and using a wet brush or water brush, pick up a bit of the ink. You'll want to work from lightest to darkest to help you with shading. So start with victorian velvet and shade in the entire fireplace with a light wash. Go back in with less water on your brush and pick up more of that ink and add in some shading. 

Next, use ground espresso to color the logs in the fireplace and to add additional shading on the fireplace itself. The next color you'll use is ripe persimmon, to color in the fire. Start by doing a light wash over the entire fire image, then go back in with more concentrated ink to color the center. For the kitty, I used black soot to make him look like my sister-in-law's cat. (His name is QVC--so cute!!) I started with the darker areas first and then drew the ink wash down to the lighter areas so it would fade as the ink was used up. Once your kitty is dry, fussy cut him out with a pair of small scissors.

For the tree, I used Distress Oxide in rustic wilderness and stamped it next to the fireplace. I also stamped out one of the layered presents. I don't have victorian velvet in Distress Oxide but I have a neat little trick to still get the tonal palette I want with the coverage of ink that I need--you'll need a stamp platform if you want to try this out. I started out by stamping the bottom layer in Distress Oxide in worn lipstick. I then re-stamped that layer with Distress Ink in victorian velvet. I had to do a couple of passes to get the coverage I wanted, but it gives a nice darkened version of victorian velvet, even if you don't have the oxide version of the ink! I then stamped out the top of the present in Distress Oxide in worn lipstick for a little pop of brighter pink. 

Fussy cut the present out (you can use a swivel craft knife on the bow portion) then add a bit of foam adhesive to the present and the cat and pop them on your card. Add ornaments to your tree with Pops of Color. I used Copper Glitter, Rose Gold and Soft Pink to complete the Victorian-inspired Christmas tree. I also added the Copper and Rose Gold to the garland on the fireplace. Once the Pops were dry, I trimmed off a bit on the bottom and top of the card front and adhered it to a piece of coordinating pink cardstock from the Roses A2 cardstock pad and then to a scored card base. (For extra dimension, pop the pink layer up from the base with foam adhesive.) And that's it! What color would you use to make your cozy holiday scene? Let me know in the comments below; and until next time, happy crafting!

Adrienne

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