Happy Christmas

I recently got this stamp set from Simon Says Stamp. It's kind of a "build your own" Christmas greeting set. It's nice for simple greetings on the front of your cards. I also came across this image on Pinterest. I have a similar embossing folder, and decided to pair that with two of the dies from Spellbinders' "2013 Snowflake Pendant" set. I felt, with the elegance of the embossing folder and dies, a simple greeting was in order, so I used the SSS set.

I cut my white background panel to 4x5.25", and ran it through my die cutting machine with the Darice "Snowflake Swirl" embossing folder. I also taped 2 of the snowflake dies together (one inside the other), and die cut a snowflake from sliver glitter cardstock and another one from white cardstock. I glued the silver to the white, just in the middle, and slightly offset to provide some layering and dimension. Finally, I glued that to the embossed panel, again leaving the "arms" of the snowflakes loose; and glued a jewel to the center with a bit of Glossy Accents.

I stamped the greeting on vellum. I had quite a bit of difficulty getting the right effect, especially since the inks I used all seemed to have a tendency to bleed on the vellum as they dried. Finally, I figured out to stamp in Memento "Gray Flannel" ink, which gave me a light grey to complement the silver snowflake, and immediately blot off the excess ink with a piece of scrap copy paper. That gave me the result I wanted--subtle and NOT blurry! :)

I ran the vellum strip through my Xyron machine, to apply an even layer of adhesive to the back. Finally, I stuck it down towards the bottom of the embossed panel, matted that panel with more silver glitter cardstock that I'd die cut with Avery Elle's "Custom Panels" A2 die, and adhered that to a 4.25x5.5" card base.

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Winter Inspiration" challenge. (I thought of this design when I saw the photo of the snowflakes on their mood board.)