Holiday Shimmer & Shine

Day 7 of Online Card Classes' "Holiday Style" class was all about adding glitz & glam to your cards. Carissa Wiley had a lesson on accentuating die cuts with glitter & foil.

I ended up getting a bit carried away, and made 6 different cards. I used the "Seasonal Sentiments" dies by WPlus9 for the word die cuts on all my cards. I also used one of the "Sprigs" dies by Spellbinders for the green flourishes.

I first die cut all my greeting words from Strathmore smooth bristol cardstock. I taped them on the back, to keep them in the surrounding cardstock while I inked them. I used Abandoned Coral, Barn Door, & a bit of Fired Brick Distress inks for an ombre look on the red words; and Evergreen Bough & Pine Needles Distress inks for the green. I also die cut the "joy" out of gold glitter paper and black cardstock, cutting the heart from the "o." I glued the glitter die cut to the black, slightly offset, to give a shadow appearance.

On my second card, once the Distress ink had dried, I used a makeup sponge to apply Versamark ink to the lower part of the die cut word. I then sprinkled on Stampendous Jeweled Gold embossing powder, and melted that with my heat tool, giving a glittery gold "dipped" look to the die cut. I stamped the other parts of the greeting, using Clearly Besotted's "Holiday Sentiments" set, onto burgundy cardstock. I then heat embossed that with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder, and cut the greeting into strips. I cut the ends into a V-shape. I then glued all the elements to my panel, which I'd cut to 4x5.25". I matted that with a piece of black cut slightly larger, then mounted that to a white A2 card base.

I followed the same basic procedure for my other cards. For the 2 that I foiled the die cuts, I applied the Versamark with the makeup sponge, then heat embossed them with Recollections Clear Detail embossing powder. Then I ran those through my Heidi Swapp Minc Mini machine with Rose Gold foil. The Minc re-melted the embossing powder, fusing the foil to the cardstock.

Detail of foiling

For the green die cut words, I applied Versamark to the die cuts, then heat embossed them with Ranger Silver embossing tinsel. I stamped the "wishing you" from Simon Says Stamp's "Christmas" mini stamp set onto a strip of dark green cardstock, and cut it into a banner.

I did the same procedure for my next card, just substituting the greeting from WPlus9's "Pretty Patches: Christmas" stamp set for my banner.

Three of these cards will be going in my package to the Caring Hearts Card Drive. My mom & I will use the other 3 for our own holiday cards this year.