Contemporary Snowflakes

I was our usual Monday night crafty session last night, this week we played with snowflake dies.  I decided to make a feature of the negative shapes left behind from the die cuts, and went for contemporary colours and plenty of Distress Ink too.

 I started by creating an inky background with Distress Inks in Shaded Lilac, Dusty Concord, salty Ocean and Broken China, giving a spritz of water to give a mottled look after inking.  Once dry, I used an Imagination Crafts stencil and more Dusty Concord ink to add a snowflake pattern all over the inked piece.  I used Xcut snowflake dies to cut the shapes from the card, my Mum treated herself to them at the weekend, and we both played with them last night.  I was impressed!  You get a lot of dies for £20, and they release from the dies no problem at all, unlike my Die'sire ones, which are a nightmare even with waxed paper.
The base mat on my card is a blue/lilac satin board, the next one, seen behind the snowflakes, is a lovely ice effect metallic card, I then raised the top inked layer up on foam pads.  The fish tail banners were embossed with a snowflake design Sizzix embossing folder, and topped with a Craftwork Cards sentiment.  To finish off, I added assorted sized iridescent gems, scattered over the card front, and Card Candi to the die cut snowflake centres.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges -

Christmas Cards All Year Round - Non Traditional Colours
Dies R Us - #5 - Christmas In July
Crafty Boots - Christmas In July
Glitter 'n' Sparkle - #92 - Bling It On
The Squirrel and the Fox - #73 - Christmas In July
Totally Gorjuss - #243 - Bling
Completely Christmas - #19 - Anything Goes
Simply Create Too - #65 - Christmas In July
Fan-Tastic Tuesday - #43 - Anything Goes
Crafty Sentiments - Anything Goes