MCV77 - Joy, Joy, Joy

Have you seen Chriss' amazing, elegant inspiration for the February Muse: ChristmasVisions? Here it is:

I LOVE this type of background. It's harder than it looks to stamp something like this and get it balanced and so pretty!

I focused on Chriss':
-colours
-joy theme
-gold embossing
-winter plants theme

I started by creating a panel of embossed poinsettias, holly and pine branches. I watercoloured with distress inks and then thought about what to do with it - I didn't want to just re-make Chriss' card (well I did, but that's not really the point of this challenge, is it? haha!).  I cut out one Joy and loved how it looked on its own, so I cut 3 more. I sponged the tops of them with Distress Ink and then stacked them all on 3 layers of dark gray, to give a subtle outline using dimension. In the end 4 was too crowded, so I used 3.

I used:
-Poppy Stamps Peaceful Poinsettia
-Essentials by Ellen Holiday Words die