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)