I really liked Design Team member Alison C's blue bokeh card! It made me start thinking about bokeh patterns of lights on Christmas trees. So, inspired by her card (and the fact that I hadn't done a bokeh technique card in quite some time!), I pulled out my retired 1998 Stampin' Up! stamp set "Pines". It is a solid pair of tree outlines, so I inked up the stamp with Wild Wasabi ink and stamped twice without re-inking repeatedly all over my Whisper White main panel. I then did the same thing to fill in the white spaces with Certainly Celery ink. There were still some white areas peaking through the trees, so I used my Aqua Painter and gave a light green coat using the Wild Wasabi ink.
For the bokeh effect there is a great tutorial on Splitcoaststampers at: Tutorials at Splitcoaststampers. I skipped the watercolor background since I had already created my Christmas tree background with the pine stamp.
I had kept a bokeh template that I created over a year ago by using different size circles to diecut template holes on a scrap piece of acetate. I used this to sponge circles randomly over the entire pine panel. It's important to use a heat tool to blow dry the circles before stamping other circles over the top of them, or else you ruin the circle outlines underneath. I created my first layer of circles using Inkxpressions Pigment White Ink. This inkpad was not as juicy as it once was, so it gave very light coverage of the pine trees. After drying it, I then used the same template with Stazon Opague Cotton White ink to make circles that look something like the sketch pattern of circles of the challenge. Again I dried this layer before proceeding to the next step.
The "Merry Christmas" sentiment is from the retired 1992 SU "Great Greetings" set. I first inked the stamp with Versamark, then with SU Garden Green ink before stamping onto the lower right corner of the main panel. I then sprinkled clear embossing powder over it, and heat set until it was nice and glossy. The dark green isn't too starkly different than the background pines, so it complements rather than takes away from the feel of the card.
The main panel was matted with SU Cherry Cobbler cardstock using Tombow glue, then glued to the SU Garden Green cardbase.
It was fun to do the bokeh technique again. It reminded me I need to get some new white ink pads! Thanks again to Alison for the inspiration!
I'm rating the difficulty level of this card as a "2" out of a possible "5". Merry Christmas!
Date: Monday, August 6, 2018 GMT Views: 626
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