Northern Lights

The current mid-month challenge for our DT at Stamping Sensations is to try something new. This month it is my turn to step outside my comfort zone!

Living in the north of the UK gives us the chance of seeing the Aurora Borealis, if conditions are favourable, and since we moved up here a few years ago I have been lucky enough to see them just once, back in October 2015. Not a good photo but at least I saw it.

I follow the Aurorawatch UK website, which sends out alerts when there is the possibility of aurora. Alerts range from green (no geomagnetic activity) through yellow and amber to red (aurora likely). Last week there was a red alert (which doesn't happen very often), meaning that there was a very good chance of seeing it if the skies were clear! Unfortunately not from here, though, as it was too misty.

However, it reminded me that I have been meaning for ages to have a go at the Northern Lights technique, so that is my something new for this month.

I had a look at a few tutorials, and learned that there is more than one method of producing the effect, using various colours of card for the background. The one I decided to follow was by Emma from Inkylicious. I won't go into all the details of the technique because you can check out Emma's excellent video here.  If you want to have a go, Inkylicious have put together a fantastic Aurora Borealis card kit with everything needed to make Northern Lights cards. Emma's method uses black card. Mindful of our one layer theme this month, I worked directly on to the base card (after quite a few practice attempts!). 

Having produced my aurora, I created the scene using landscape stencils which I made myself (though the Inkylicious kit includes a mountain/valley stencil), and white pigment ink for the stamping (all stamps by Inkylicious). I used a stamping platform to stamp the main elements so that I could go over each one a couple of times to get a good dense white and make sure they stood out against the background. I added highlights with a white gel pen and some shading to the hills with a white pencil.

I didn't get the sweep of the aurora quite how I wanted them, and I think less would have been better (got a bit carried away!), but I'm reasonably happy with the final result as a first effort. It was a fun (not to mention messy!) technique to try, and I'll certainly be having another go!

There's still plenty of time to join in this month's Challenge, where our theme for November is One Layer Christmas Cards. Full details and entry rules, along with plenty of inspiration from the DT, are on the challenge post, which you will find here. It's definitely worth entering, as we have some wonderful prizes, but please do remember to check out the rules to ensure that your project is eligible. We look forward to seeing your creations!