The Magic of Christmas

I must be one of very few paper crafters who don't make their own Christmas cards. While I enjoy looking at other people's cards, I don't find them very exciting to make and the obligation of having to produce dozens of them, fills me with dread instead of inspiration. So I just buy them and I'm not ashamed to admit it! However, I'm very fussy and will spend weeks looking for the perfect design. Here's what I chose this year from WHSmith:

Shop-bought Christmas card designed for WHSmith

I was so inspired by this design, that I decided to make my own mixed media version of it, which you can see below:

My mixed-media version

After scanning in the image I enlarged it to fit my substrate, which is the back of an old board book about 10" X 7" in size. I covered it with dictionary paper and coloured the background with Caran D'ache Neocolor II wax crayons, distressing it with some white acrylics. I didn't want the background to be too busy because I was planning to use several different types of patterned paper in the foreground.

I roughly traced along the individual shapes of garments and transferred them onto patterned paper to cut out. I paper pieced the figures of the three kings, without being too precise with the measurements. The faces, beards and hands were cut from watercolour card. After everything was stuck down, I shaded around the shapes with Faber Castell Pitt pens. For the crowns, I punched some circles from double sided sticky sheets and added some micro-glitter. I did the same with the star. As a finishing touch, I outlined the hems of the garments and a few other spots with glitter glue. I love how the glitter twinkles when it catches the light. It does look a little bit magical.

I'm entering this project for the monthly challenge at the Google Plus Community: Creating and Sharing Mixed Media Art, where the theme for December is 'magic'!

Here are some close-up photos of my project (click on the photos for enlargement).

I tried to show the twinkling glitter in this shot.