Two for One Backgrounds

 Hi Artzy friends -

Today I have some festive cards created with a two for one stenciled background technique, and hot foiling.

I created my backgrounds by die cutting  white cardstock with the Botanical Background die. I then used the die cut as a stencil by ink blending over another piece of white cardstock with 3 shades of Distress inks, creating an ombre look. This resulted in the die cut (or "stencil") being ink blended, as well as the solid white cardstock panel.  I did this 3 times, in shades of blue, green, and pink.

Picket Fence Paper Pouncers are perfect for this technique, as it's very easy to bend or tear the die cut if you aren't very gentle while inking over it. 

For today's cards I decided to used the green and blue backgrounds. (I used the pink backgrounds for two other cards which I will share soon.)

The other star of these cards is the Dare 2B Artzy Joy Christmas Tree Hot Foil Plate. I hot foiled several of the trees using my Spellbinders Glimmer Machine and different colors of hot foils (Here I used gold, silver, and rainbow foils). I also used the Dare 2B Artzy Solid Hot Foil Plate  to use the negative foil pieces to get a more solid look for the silver and gold trees. I cut my trees out using the die from the Joy Christmas Tree die set. This die set also cuts out the stamps in the Joy Christmas Tree stamp set. 

The cards were then simple to assemble. I adhered my die cut backgrounds to my white card bases. I cut green and blue mats for my stenciled panels to set them off from my card bases. 

These were fun and fairly easy to create! They pack a lot of shine, (so much shine that they're difficult to photograph!) and the sentiment is already included in the image! 

Thanks for visiting and have a great day!

Avra