Merry Christmas to You

Yes, it's the Christmas card creating time of year for me again! This week's challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown is "Flower/Flourish." I actually made use of both on this card, with some foiling in the background using the Prima "Flourish" stencil (discontinued) to jazz things up a bit.

I decided to go with a mini slimline card size for this. I actually had an inside sentiment panel left over from last year that I had not yet used, so I kind of built this card around that. Hey, whatever gets things used, right? :)

I cut a panel of Bazzill Dark Seas cardstock to 3-1/4x6-1/4". I stamped the smaller poinsettia flower from Honey Bee's "Pretty Poinsettias" set (discontinued) in 2 opposite corners. I wanted to color them with my colored pencils, but wanted to heat emboss in gold as well. To make it easier, I first stamped (using my MISTI stamp positioning tool) with Lawn Fawn's Hippo ink, to give me the coloring outlines. I left the stamp in my MISTI, & colored the images with my Prismacolor pencils. When I finished coloring, I put my panel back into the corner of my MISTI, & restamped with embossing ink over each flower. I heat embossed with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold embossing powder.

To do the foiling on the background, I first cut a mask for each of the poinsettia images. I lined up the masks over the flowers, & laid my stencil over the panel. I pounced leafing glue through the stencil with a makeup wedge. I removed the stencil & flower masks, & let the glue dry for about half an hour until it was tacky. Then I cut a piece of Opal DecoFoil to size & laid it over my panel. To transfer the foil, I put the panel between the plates for my die cutting machine, covered it with a piece of copy paper to keep the plate from marking it up, & ran it through my machine. Much to my delight, it worked like a charm! I love how the opal foil adds interest, but doesn't overwhelm the poinsettias.

I used a greeting from Gina K's "Holiday Wreath Builder" stamp set. I heat embossed it with Antique Gold onto a scrap of the Dark Seas cardstock, & die cut it with a Spellbinders "Lacey Circles" die (discontinued). And I hated it! I just didn't like the way the die cut blended in with the background too much. So I tried again with a lighter blue cardstock, & liked that much better. To give it a bit of dimension, I die cut another circle from the lighter blue, & then layered those & the Dark Seas die cut together. Finally, I glued it centered onto my panel. I adhered my panel to a white card base, & that wrapped this up! I am so happy with this card, AND the fact that I finally got that inside panel into a card. :)

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

613 Avenue Create: September "Anything Goes" (not playing the optional twist)

Paper Funday Challenge #69: "Anything Goes" (playing the make your own background twist)

Double Trouble #175: "Any Way You Punch It"