Christmas In August??

I don't know about you, but I send or give out a lot of Christmas cards, so I need getting started with them as soon as I can, usually I end up doing them all at once in December. I am kinda hung up on this "universe" background, love the way it looks as a night sky. To make my card I started with an A2 card base in white and then cut a panel out of patterned paper using a stitched die from my Favorite things. For the "universe" background, I used a piece of watercolor paper and painted swatches of color covering the entire paper and heat set it to dry the color.  I swirled black watercolor paint over the entire thing, some places darker than others and dried it again with the heat gun. After it was completely dry I added splatters of white paint using the Tim Holtz Splatter brush, let me tell ya, it makes it super easy to control where your splatters go.  I cut an oval out of both the patterned paper and the universe background, then placed the background into the patterned paper. Next I stamped the nativity from the set, Joy to the World also on watercolor paper using the MISTI because watercolor paper is textured and using the MISTI makes sure I get a clean image. I used Zig Clean Color real brush markers to color it and then cut it out and popped it up in the middle of the oval.