Magical Winter Dawn (by Anne)

Good morning. Here is my first project with the lovely new Winter Dawn stamp. It is also my first go at parchment craft. It took a bit of getting used to using an embossing tool to add white highlights rather than adding shading for the colouring, like working in negative. Her eyes turned out to be a little scary but I was fairly pleased with the results. It gave my lady a very magical ethereal look. I hope that you like her.
Anne x.
Materials:

• Winter Dawn stamp
• Pearlescent white card, blue card and parchment
• Pergamano Tinta Ink (white)
• Alcohol ink pen (mid grey)
• Fine tipped white acrylic pen
• Stickles glitter glue (Diamond)
• Embossing mat and fine tipped embossing ball tools
• Needle tool and brass stencil for piercing
• Small poinsettia and snowflake dies, decorative layering dies

How it was made:

1. I created the card blank from an A4 sheet of pearl card folded in half. The largest die was placed on top such that it overhung the top edge to leave an opening hinge, then cut through both layers. The same die was used to cut a mat to glue onto the front and hide the flat top. The bottom was trimmed slightly so the card would stand without rocking.
2. A blue mat and white frame were then cut. I cut the parchment to fit inside the frame with a small border for gluing. I used the Tinta ink to stamp the image onto the parchment. Being new to parchment I really wasn’t sure what ink would work and I knew that this is designed for parchment. However, it is really designed to work with a dip pen. It did sort of work but the results weren’t the best and it was difficult to see the stamped image, especially from the back. I will have to research this. Maybe StazOn ink would work better?
3. I then used embossing tools to gently stroke the parchment on the reverse side to create the white ‘colouring’. Intermittently I let the parchment rest before further enhancing and whitening with the tools.
4. My poor lady ended up with very weird white eyes and eyebrows! I used the grey alcohol marker on the back to try and rescue her and add some shading. I also used alcohol blender to eliminate harsh lines drawn with the pen. I used the white pen to add the dots onto her pupils. I quite liked the shading and added some to her hair too.
5. The delicate snowflakes were a bit impossible to see from the back. So I simple used them as a guide for embossing the lines. I used a needle tool to punch through a brass stencil and add a little texture onto the background.
6. I glued the parchment to the inside edge of the white frame and mounted it onto the blue mat. Note: I don’t have the proper glue or snipping tools for parchment so it was a little tricky to work out how to attach it without the glue showing through. I used normal acrylic glue, hiding it under the edge of the frame and placed tiny dots behind the snowflakes where they would not be obvious. There are specialist parchment glues that are designed to dry clear and be hardly visible.
7. Finally I added the small die cut embellishments and added some glitter glue for sparkle.

I think I quite like this parchment stuff …. Oh dear …. Another addiction?