Dream A Little Dream

Back in September I bought a lot of dies (A LOT!).  I'm slowly working my way through cutting them all and trying them out in projects.  I loved this tree panel die, but interestingly what I had in mind for it is nothing like what I ended up creating.

I found a pad of watercolour paper in Lidl for a steal (so of course I bought some) and then I set out to make a few interesting backgrounds for a different project.  I dabbed Distress Stains (Peeled Paint, Festive Berries, Broken China and a touch of Mustard Seed) onto an old mirror (in lieu of a craft sheet) then spritzed with water and painted random patches of colour on to the watercolour paper until the paper was covered.

At first I cut the tree panel in white and coloured it in with watercolour pencils, but I didn't really like it, so I cut it in black and mounted it onto the background I had created.  It looked so pretty and whimsical, so I put the whole thing on the front of a card and added a sentiment from an old stamp set.

I used a black mat for this card which really highlights the tree, but if I had used any of the colours from the background for the mat, that colour would be highlighted. For example a blue mat would have highlighted the blue in the background and so on.  (A little tip that I picked up from Mel Heaton on Create & Craft TV.)