Iconic Christmas Card

Materials
Red paper/old envelope
Gold acrylic paint
Treasure Gold
Die cut
A3 good quality/weight paper
Watercolour paints
Salt
Soft cloth
Embellishment

Technique
Inspired by religious icon paintings, this card was made using an old red envelope to which acrylic gold paint was roughly applied, so that some of the red still showed through - as the red size beneath the gold would do on an aged, gilded icon.  I used Winsor & Newton Pale Gold acrylic.  The frame of the religious scene was a black card die cut.  The 'sky' background was cut from a large sheet of good quality paper randomly washed with various watercolour paints, wet on wet, onto which salt crystals had been randomly scattered and allowed to dry to create the effect of stars - more easily seen in this example used on another card........

I then attached the die cut to the painted paper with PVA glue, taking care to clean up any that oozed out of the sides, and once dry, applied a coat of gloss Mod Podge water based sealer over the entire scene, including the black die cut.  The completed scene was then mounted onto the gold painted paper and attached securely using a glue stick.  

The next step was to sweep lightly across the scene with some Treasure Gold (Renaissance) on a soft cloth to age and highlight the black frame.  I also rubbed Treasure Gold lightly but evenly across the acrylic gold paint surrounding the scene to age and warm the gold colour.  The paper (with scene attached) was then stuck to the front of a plain card using double sided photo tape and trimmed to size.  The finishing touch was a flat back faceted embellishment glued to the centre of the star.

Further idea:  Try mixing acrylic crackle medium with the gold paint to create a more aged effect.