Welcome to November’s Collected Crafty Collabs’ blog hop! This month we went for a Christmas theme with our supply of choice being texture pastes/mousses!

I have had this pearly coloured Crackle Mousse from Nuvo in my drawer since the day I got it; so I grabbed one of my newer Altenew stencils, a piece of mixed media cardstock cut to 4.25 x 5.5inch and a pallette knife! I was finally ready to break into the tub!

I’ve also got the gunmetal coloured crackle mousse and I’ve used that a few times, so I was already prepared with knowledge of issues when working with these particular mousses.

For a start, they warp your cardstock to a degree that you need industrial strength glue and several layers of seriously strong cardstock to get to a position where you can attach it to a cardbase! (I’m not even kidding!! The first time I used this medium I was horrified to find my cardstock rolled up like a cigar the following day!! ?)

This is easy to rectify though; this time I used mixed media paper rather than my usual Neenah and whilst I still got some warping, it was more a curling than a full on rolling!)

The other thing is that the thicker you layer this mousse, the deeper your cracks will be and if your cracks go too deep you run the risk of some of the dried medium flaking off. Again, this is fairly easy to avoid whilst applying the mousse.

I absolutely love how the Pearly sheen of the crackled mousse looks, so I’m really excited to use it again!!!

I used a flower and leaves that I had previously stamped and fussy cut as my focal image; it is the gorgeous flower from Altenew’s Calming Reverie set, stamped in Ruby Red ink, also from Altenew.

I added a simple, stamped sentiment which is from another Altenew stamp set, using Versafine Onyx Black ink.

I glued the two leaf clusters directly to the card panel then added the flower up on some adhesive foam tape. I really love the way that the petals and leaves from my sentiment so perfectly.