Gelatos. . .

 This was another thing I made at the Christmas Club at the Craft Barn.  Chris Dark showed us how to do a background using gelatos - paint a background of gesso on to a sheet of paper (the kind you'd use to make cards from) making sure you don't have a particularly smooth surface.  When it's dry, scribble gelatos onto it and then use a wet wipe to move it around slightly.  You need to be quite careful with this - it's easy to move it all away!  When it's dry, stamp over the top in Versamark ink and add embossing powder (we used snowflake stamps).  Then use a heat gun to emboss - making sure you get all of it done (otherwise you find out later on when you're trying to make cards......).  Then you just cut it up for your cards - I chose specific bits to use.  On top we put cut out snowflakes, and added a small self adhesive gem in the middle.  You can also outline the masterboard cut outs with stickles - I did but I doubt you can see it here.

More tiles....

 Two more stamps..... these ones I did at home.  I used the JOFY stamp from her first Christmas set (with Bah Humbug! - great wording).  That one is actually quite easy because only 2 colours to paint on.  The other one is a brand new stamp - from the Tim Holtz range, but designed by Brett Weldele. I was going over one I didn't like the first time, so I already had a red background.   Both of these stamps are not see through, but they both worked the first time - perhaps I was lucky??!

Woodware stamp on a tile

This is a tile we made at the Christmas Club at the Craft Barn.  We made 4 tiles, but I am really pleased with this one - Chris Dark, the tutor, brought some stamps in for us, but then she said use anything you want ......  had one look in the Christmas stamps drawer and found this.  Not sure I'd have bought this for a Christmas Card, but it's lovely for a tile.

We made this in really the same way you do a stampboard tile, but instead of using inks we used paint.  Paint the tile - 2 layers  - and then use a pale shade of distress ink to put the stamp on.  Then use paints to colour the bits you need coloured.  On this one, I used white paint for the beards, green paint for their headgear, gold paint for the jars and the star, then a tiny bit of red and some pale blue.  It's quite difficult to paint everything, so no need to fill in every bit of clothing.  When the paint is dry (doesn't take long) use black archival or staz-on to stamp the stamp on over the top.  This tends to be a lot easier with see through stamps, as you have slightly more of a clue where to put the stamp.... but I did 2 at home with non see through stamps and they were fine.

Then cut a square of felt to go on the bottom so that they don't catch (and if you drop them and break them, you at least have a chance of keeping them together!)