Happy Cyber Monday! If you’re not too tired from Black Friday shopping, today is a great day for crafty shopping. Scrapbook-com still has tons of items on sale (find all of the current deals here) as well as a really cool freebie today only…a full pack of Distress Crayons! I created a couple of backgrounds with some of the colors in the pack to use on some clean and simple cards.
I started by trimming two pieces of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Cardstock to 5″ x 7″. Then, I roughly applied white gesso all over the panels with a foam brush, being sure to leave stroke marks for extra texture. (Since the cardstock is white, you can also use clear gesso in this step.)
Next I scribbled Fired Brick and Evergreen Bough Distress Crayons all over the panels (the perfect Christmas colors!) and smoothed them out a bit with my fingertips. The texture from the gesso shows through, and the swirling patterns from the motion of my fingertip blending adds even more interest to it.
Using the Make Art Stay-tion, I secured the Trees Stencil over top of each panel. With a damp baby wipe, I removed the color through the stencil to yield two pretty pine backgrounds. (The gesso layer allows for easier removal of color in this step and also protects the cardstock from pilling.)
This next step was a colossal FAIL. We all make mistakes and I love to experiment. I thought these backgrounds would look great with allover glitter on top…so I pulled out an older jar of Nuvo Moonstone Glimmer Paste and applied it to my red tree background with a palette knife. The paste had thickened up over time, and even though I knew almost immediately that I had made a mistake and would never get the look I was going for, I stubbornly proceeded until the entire piece was covered (you can even see where the background had been scraped up because I was working that dry paste in so much). My poor red panel was lost, so I turned my focus to the green one instead…lol.
Still intent on making two cards, I trimmed my background panel down to 4″ x 5.25″, sliced it diagonally, and adhered the pieces to two 4″ x 5.25″ white cardstock panels.
Then I stamped some fun sentiments from the Sassy Christmas and Naughty and Nice stamp sets on the white portion of the card fronts in Versamark ink, added gold embossing powder, and melted it with my heat tool. My MISTI ensured that the sentiments ended up exactly where I wanted them. (As the mother of two kids under 5, I can really relate to this particular sentiment – “All I want for Christmas is Peace and Quiet”…)
With a little foam adhesive, I attached the panels to two top-folding A2-sized white card bases and these quick and funny cards were complete!
Have you tried Distress Crayons yet? I have a dozen or so colors and have only a experimented with a handful of techniques yet myself, and they’re a lot of fun…but if you’re on the fence about them, you can add them to your cart for free today! What’s the first technique you would try?
Supplies Used:
Note: This post contains affiliate links. This means that I receive a small commission if you purchase a product through some of the links in this post or below at no additional cost to you. Thank you for helping to support this blog!
 Naughty and Nice Stamp Set Shop at: SB |
 Sassy Christmas Stamp Set Shop at: SB |
 Trees Stencil Shop at: SB |
 Distress Crayons Set 7 Shop at: SB |
 Clear Gesso Shop at: SB |
 Nuvo Moonstone Glimmer Paste Shop at: SB |
 Make Art Stay-tion Shop at: SB |
 MISTI Shop at: SB |
 Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SB | HA |
 Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Shop at: SB | CCS |
 Palette Knives Shop at: SB |
 Foam Squares Shop at: SB |