Merry Christmas to You

This week's technique challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown is "CAS/One Layer." I don't consider myself a CAS card maker generally. But I took the challenge, & made this card.

My card admittedly took a few twists & turns during the creation. Taking a page from Jennifer McGuire's playbook, I actually made 4 cards with this design, just changing the greeting for each. This card using Gina K products inspired my initial design. I liked the circle for the greeting in the middle with the heat embossed imagery behind it. I figured with some creative masking, I could make a similar one-layer card. At first, I was going to use that same image from "Holiday Tapestry," but when I laid it on my panel, I just felt it was too big to work for my design. So, to keep more white space, I opted for a snowflake background using Mama Elephant's "Holly's Snowflakes" stamp set instead.

I first heat embossed the circle for around the greeting, from Gina K's "Holiday Wreath Builder." I meant to stamp it in the exact center of my panel, but apparently measuring was not my strength this time, & I got it slightly higher on the panel. Oh, well - no worries! I heat embossed the greeting with the same Ranger Silver Super Fine Detail powder that I'd used on the circle frame.

I die cut a 1-7/8" circle from masking paper, using a Waffle Flower "Additional Circles" die. I used that to mask the greeting area, & cut strips of yellow Frog tape to 1/2" wide to mask the outer border of my panel. I placed the panel in my MISTI, & arranged several of the snowflake stamps on the panel. I picked them all up on the MISTI door, & stamped them in Versamark ink. I used Ranger Silver Pearl embossing powder to heat emboss them. I had expected it to be a bit more subtle, with just a hint of color, but I think it still works OK.

After the heat embossing had cooled, I removed the masks, & used my scoreboard to score a line around the perimeter of where the snowflakes ended. I scored first on the front, so I could see where to mark the lines, & then flipped my panel over to score on those lines from the back, so they would be embossed on the front. I finished by adhering my card front to a white A2-size card base. I don't consider this a mass-producible card, given how fiddly it was to position everything, plus having to mask off the border on each panel. But to create 4 took me about 2 hours give or take, so not too bad.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge: "Anything Goes"

Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge: "Make Your Own Background"

The Paper Funday Challenges #44: "Anything Goes" (not playing the twist)