Happy Holidays Ornaments

This month's color challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown is "Baby Blue, White, & Light Brown." I had gotten the "Holiday Ornaments" stamp set by Pretty Pink Posh several months ago, & it's been lying on my desk ever since, waiting for me to use it. I thought this was the perfect occasion to break it out.

I decided to use Gansai Tambi Pearl Colors watercolors to paint the ornaments, just to give them a little extra pizzaz. I stamped them on Strathmore mixed media paper & painted them with the blue & white paints in the set. I had to water down the blue quite a bit to get it to the right value, but it worked out great in the end. After the paint dried, I noticed that parts of the white areas seemed a bit dingy when I looked at them at certain angles, so I went over those areas with another layer of the white pearlescent watercolor. That improved things. The problem might have been different thicknesses of the paint layers catching the light oddly. At any rate, after the paint had thoroughly dried, I fussy cut each ornament with my scissors & poked holes through the ornament hangers.

I die cut a panel of light kraft cardstock with one of the "Stitched Indented Rectangles" from Elizabeth Craft Designs (discontinued). After putting white metallic thread through the ornament hangers, I glued the ornaments in place on my panel. I folded the thread ends to the back of the panel & adhered them in place with double-sided tape. After the glue dried thoroughly, I heat embossed my greeting, from Honey Bee Stamps' "Pretty Poinsettias" stamp set (discontinued). Finally, I adhered my panel to a white A2 card base.

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

Ellibelle's Corner I Spy with My Little Eye Challenge: "Something to Celebrate"

Ellibelle's Corner Crafty Wednesday Challenge: "Anything Goes"

The Paper Funday Challenges #79: "Anything Goes" (not playing the twist)

Happy Holidays

This week's stash challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown is all about heat embossing and/or foiling. I decided to go the foil route with this card. The camera doesn't do the shine justice, but take my word for it - in the light, you need sunglasses to look at it! :)

I began by creating my background. I taped one of the stencils from Vicki Boutin's "Peppermint" set (discontinued) over an A2-size panel of dark teal cardstock. I applied Liquitex Heavy Gloss Gel medium over the stencil, then pulled the stencil off - VERY carefully so as not to smudge the gel! After the medium dried completely, I laid my silver Minc foil over the panel & ran it through my Mini Minc machine. Then I trimmed 1/8" off two sides, so I would have a narrow border around my panel on my card. Because I used a gloss medium, the foil sticks to it when you run it through a Minc, laminator, etc. This only works with toner foil, not hot foil, & a gloss medium. You can even use something like gloss Mod Podge, though you might not get the dimensional effect you do with a gel medium. (I learned this technique from Lindsay Weirich, at The Frugal Crafter YouTube channel.)

I die cut the greeting & its shadow layer using the "Jolly Holiday Greetings" set from Concord & 9th. I actually cut the shadow layer twice from white cardstock & glued them together to make it thicker. Because the cardstock was on the thinner side, I was concerned it might not layer over the dimensional foiled background with only one piece of cardstock without being bumpy. I glued the "happy" to the backer with liquid glue, but I noticed a little of the cardstock dye ran when the glue squidged out a little. So I ran the "holidays" through my Xyron 1.5" Create-a-Sticker to apply adhesive to the back. That worked out much better. Thankfully, I was able to touch up the few spots where the dye ran with a white gel pen.

I used Honey Bee Stamps' "Winter Greenery" die set for my berry branches & leaves. I die cut the berries from two different red cardstock scraps. For the branches, I didn't have the color brown I wanted in my scraps, so I ink blended Gathered Twigs Distress ink & onto a scrap of a pale brown cardstock. Then I cut my branches out of that, & my leaves from a pale green cardstock.

To position everything, I laid my greeting onto the panel without gluing it down, & used that as a guide. After I had placed my branches & leaves, sticking out from behind the greeting, I carefully removed the greeting layer & glued my embellishments down with liquid glue. At first, I just tacked down the ends that went behind the greeting to hold everything in place, then went back & glued the rest of each die cut in place. I glued my berries to the branches, & finally glued down my greeting with liquid glue. I put a couple of heavy acrylic blocks on top of the greeting to hold it securely until the glue dried. All I had left to do then was adhere it to a white A2-size card base.

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

• Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge: "Anything Goes"
• Creative Knockouts Challenge #551: "Sparkle & Shine"
• Ellibelle's Corner I Spy with My Little Eye Challenge: "Something to Celebrate"
• The Paper Funday Challenge #78: "Anything Goes with Optional Twist - Fun with Stencils" (playing the twist)