Take two.

On our journey through the Christmas alphabet, this week we have reached H is for Hotspot. This is an interesting technique whereby an image is stamped in monochrome, usually black and white. It is then stamped for a second time and a small area is chosen for the 'Hotspot', coloured, cropped, normally as a circle, matted onto a second slightly larger, darker circle, and then carefully attached in its correct position on the main image.

Cute images lend themselves to this technique, and I don't usually do 'cute', but I did manage to find this little mouse stamp by Personal Impressions, and it worked just fine. I used a momento inkpad so I could colour it with my copic markers. I wanted to make a bright and cheerful card so I used a sheet of docrafts paper which could be nearly antique!, some slightly gaudy parcel ribbon, and I made a poinsettia with my new Marianne die that was just begging to be used. I can take no credit for the holly and bow as it is something I rescued from a Christmas card I recieved last year.

I am quite happy with this card though it is not really my style so I had a second go with a stamp I have used in this way many times before. This is one of my favourite Penny Black images, new last autumn I believe, and I have a pair to it showing a doe and her baby in a similar landscape. To stamp this, I carefully inked up all the background with a pad, again I used momento tuxedo black, and then I coloured the stag with a brown Marvy le plume pen, and stamped it altogether. Normally I would leave it like that, but for this challenge I repeated the stamping and cut the stag to mount as my hotspot. I layered it onto some silver holographic paper, (this was a rash buy from QVC I think, and I have enough of it to wallpaper my room, so I am trying to use some up!), and then onto black. A large tree by Magenta stamped onto a white base card provided the background, and a simple SeeD's greetings and some punched out silver snowflakes was all it needed. However, I usually add a bit of sparkle with a stickles glitter glue to snowy scenes, using one of my trio of ice, diamond and crystal. When I couldn't replace one of these I bought the newer one called frosted lace which appears to be whiter in the bottle. I though I'd give it a try on this card but I was disappointed to find that it has much less sparkle. than the others. That was last night. This morning I found that it had taken on a hint of pink, which wasn't quite the effect I was looking for. Whether it interacted with the momento ink, or whether it will always look like this, I have yet to find out. But what's done is done, and I am happy with the card anyway.

So I am entering both these cards in the ABC Christmas Challenge - H is for Hotspot.