O Little Town of Bethlehem LTC

I am hosting my first LTC swap!  Back in October I noticed that there was only one Christmas LTC tracker on AQ.  Last year I participated in about a half dozen Christmas swaps and I was looking forward to making some more Christmas cards this year.

I asked on the AQ boards if anyone would be interested in another Christmas swap and several people said yes.  I called it, "Christmas Carols 2013" and I had a dozen people sign up.  This is so exciting :)

Last year, I participated in a swap called,  "Something New For Christmas."  I got back some really awesome cards.  There were several techniques that I just had to try and this is one of them.  I actually picked out this stamp image when the swap was over last time.  I have been looking forward to making this card for almost a year.

First, I took blue cardstock and painted it with white jeso.  While the jeso was still wet, I sprinkled the micro beads on it and pressed them down with some plastic wrap.  While that was drying, I carved my stamp and stamped it on the same blue cardstock that I used for the main background.  When the jeso was finished drying, I painted blue horizontal stripes across the card with three different shades of blue acrylic paint.  Now comes the hard part, I painted gold swirls on my blue background.  This has been my most labor intensive card that I have ever made but it was worth it!  I just love how they came out.    

Christmas Carols 2013: O Little Town of Bethlehem

Here are the instructions that I followed to make my cards:
http://techniqueszone.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/textured-micro-beads-backgrounds/