Christmas in Black & White

I wanted to incorporate my Winter Foliage ZIA into a Christmas card & that is how the layout came about. The other two cards have an identical layout - in fact very similar to that in my previous post though these were made earlier as they needed to be sent via Royal Mail.

tangles: Flux, Verdigogh

tangles: Cruffle, Verdigogh

tangles: Cruffle, Flux

inside of cards

Supplies

Pens/Markers 01 Uni Pin Drawing Pen & 08 Sakura Pigma Micron Pen (tangles); 07 Pergamano White Gel Pen (highlights on Flux); Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker (edging Zentangle tiles & message panels).

Cardstock Official Zentangle tiles; white & black from stash.

Dies Spellbinders Sheapeabilities Create-A-Flake Three (snowflakes) & Nestabilities Labels Sixteen (message panels).

Punch Woodware Corner Rounder (black matting panels for Zentangle tiles).

Zentangle Inspired Christmas Cards

These are my two submissions for The Diva's Weekly Challenge #148: "Merry Happy" where her brief is:

"In the spirit of the Holidays, this week's challenge is to create a piece or tile for your own holidays. Whatever you celebrate, however you celebrate."

My two cards have basically the same layout but didn't start off that way. Both, however, were the result of persevering & finding a way round mishaps (or perhaps I should say opportunities since there are no mistakes in Zentangle).

tangles: Huggins, Hurry

The first was going to be a large ZIA (Zentangle Inspired Artwork) simply matted on gold cardstock before mounting onto a card base. I'd tangled all of it including a wide frame of Meer & had shaded the Huggins (using Derwent Coloursoft pencils with a paper stump & Sansador) when I stopped to sort out the sponges in the little pot I use for keeping a small amount of the Sansodor for dipping my paper stumps into. In so doing a drop of Sansodor landed on my artwork but thankfully only on the frame portion. Chopping off the frame meant that I had a square slightly smaller than a Zentangle tile which I mounted onto a 4 inch square of black cardstock with rounded corners. The snowflakes are die-cuts (using Spellbinders Shapeabilities Create-A-Flake Three). The stars were drawn using a Pinflair Stepper Template.

tangles: Cruffle, Flux

The second card uses an Official Zentangle Tile edged in black ink (Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker) mounted onto a 4 inch square of black cardstock with rounded corners & another 4 snowflakes as in the first, red cardstock instead of gold & a black card base. My mishap here occurred as I was going to shade the leaves using a single green Derwent Coloursoft pencil with the paper stump & Sansador. Despite heat setting my Sakura Pigma Micron penwork it smudged badly whereas in my first card it had not. The only difference between the two was my substrate: in the first W H Smith 220gsm white cardstock & in this one the official tile. I salvaged the tile by layering 3 shades of green pencil to achieve the shading of the leaves. I was rather pleased with the result for the baubles really gained definition against the brightness of the leaves. A white gel pen was used to add highlights on the berries.

inside of cards

Both cards have the same internal design - a simple white die-cut (Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Sixteen) edged with the Memento Tuxedo Black Dual Marker forms the message panel.

Winter Foliage

The December Challenge (Number 21) for the Chocolate Baroque Zentangle Group is based upon the theme of Winter. Fir trees are what immediately spring to my mind when I think of winter &, of course, snow. Our front garden is hedged with Cotoneaster bushes providing an abundant feast of berries for the birds at this time of year so my Zentangle Inspired Artwork (ZIA) developed along the lines of winter foliage rather than snowflakes.

tangles: Flux, Verdigogh

The official Zentangle tile was edged with a black marker (Mememto) prior to mounting onto a larger square of black cardstock with rounded corners. A white gel pen was used to add highlights to the berries.