Stockings by the open fire

This is by far the most time consuming card I've ever made. I've made mini albums and altered projects that took longer time, but never a card. I think it took me 10 hours to complete. I wont go into every little detail, but I can explain some of the techniques I used. It was the stocking die that inspired me to make this card. Immediately when I saw it I knew I had to make an open fire for the stockings to hang over. I looked at a lot of photos of stockings by the fire and then tried to create the most realistic look. I made the brick wall by using a stencil and modeling paste. In fact I used Aleenes true snow - worked like a charm. When it was dry I colored it with different red, orange and brown distress inks. I cut a hole in the brick wall for the fire place and started to think about how I was going to create the fire.

I colored a piece of manilla cardstock with yellow, orange and red distress inks, making sure they blended well. Then I started to cut out the flames by hand, but it did not look good. Time to be creative. I went through my dies in search for something that looked like flames and when I saw my poinsettia die I knew the petals would be perfect. I cut out a bunch of flowers and then cut off all the petals. To create the wall behind the fire I used orange, red and black distress inks to make the wall look really warm and grimy, like real fire places do. To highlight the flames I painted on some Glamour Dust Glitter Paint. Thanks for looking and have a great day!