Blue NOEL Card

Happy Monday to you, my friend!  I can't believe that another week has quickly passed.  It's almost Thanksgiving time and I'm not ready yet.  How about you?  Have you mailed out any cards to family and friends?  Have you got that dinner menu planned?  And the house decorated with turkeys and pumpkins?  I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it.  I'm so excited that seven ladies are joining me on Tuesday to put together the Thanksgiving cards for the shut-in members from church.  It will be fun to introduce them to the glories of stamping and card making.  Hope this works out well and is just the beginning of this group effort to send cards out each month.  I've been doing this on my own, but you know it's always more fun with friends!

Here's what I made several days ago to share with you.  I've looked at it for 4 days and just wasn't really happy with it.  Don't you think it needed something?  It just wasn't great - rather boring.  After fretting about it for days, I figured if I wasn't happy with it, I needed to take the card apart and make some adjustments to it.   And that's exactly what I did!  

The NOEL was really bothering me, so that's what was peeled off first.   I die-cut another set of letters in Blueberry Bushel and started to play around with the card by using only the blue, or the blue over the silver sparkle, or....  Here's what I came up with.

I love the look so much better with that small bit of framing of Blueberry Bushel cardstock underneath the More Dazzle die-cut letters.  It just makes the whole card better, more cohesive.  So, let's talk about how to make the card.

It starts with a Blueberry Bushel card base that measures 11" x 4 1/4", scored at 5 1/2" and folded in half.  Next a layer of the beautiful Winter Meadow Designer Series Paper was cut to measure 3 7/8" x 5 1/8".  Isn't this snowy forest-looking paper just perfect?  I love it!  A small frame of Basic White is cut to go under it.  That measures 5 1/4" x 4".  This leaves just a bitty frame of white to set the paper apart from the Blueberry Bushel cardstock base.  

Before attaching them together, the NOEL die was used to cut the letters out of the DSP.  This would allow me to get the letters spaced nicely when putting the card together.  The same die was used to cut the More Dazzle Specialty paper also.  At this point, I should have also cut the letters from the Blueberry Bushel cardstock that I added later.

Attach the DSP to the Basic White layer with adhesive.  Using adhesive, tuck the Blueberry Bushel letters into the die-cut space on the DSP.  Layer the More Dazzle letters over the blue letters with adhesive.  I off-set these to the right and down when attaching them.

The tree dies from the Forever Forest Bundle were used to cut three different sized trees from the Blueberry Bushel paper.  These were lined up on the bottom left of the card front and attached with adhesive.  A 1/2" strip of the More Dazzle Paper was added across the card and covered the bottom of the trees.

This card front was attached to the card base using Dimensionals.

The inside of the card has a layer of Basic White measuring 5 1/4" x 4".  The sentiment on it comes from the Wishes All Around stamp set.  It was stamped with Blueberry Bushel ink.  The trio of snowflakes are from the same set.  These are also stamped with Blueberry Bushel ink but were off-stamped before stamping to get a lighter color on the snowflakes.

There was a 1" strip of the same DSP that was left over, so it was attached to the white layer using adhesive.  The finished white layer was then attached to the inside of the card with adhesive.

The final touch on this snowy card is the addition of some clear Rhinestone Basic Jewels.  They sparkle just right to blend in with the More Dazzle design elements without competing with them.

Isn't this version better?  I think it was well worth the effort to do a remake on this card.  So now you've gotten a look into the card making process when things don't look quite as nice in person as they do in my mind.  Sometimes some tweaking is needed.  Don't be afraid to finagle your cards if they don't turn out quite right.  Try moving around the elements of the card or consider adding something different instead.   You never know what will work until you try it!  

Thanks for sharing some of your day with me.  I love hearing what you think about my ideas, so leave me a comment if you would.

If you'd like to order, I want to tell you that Stampin'Up! is having a Seasonal Sale on November 14 - 16.  You can save up to 20% on select items.  Make sure you check the online store to see all the items available.  Have fun stocking up on some of your favorite inks (pads, markers, refills), ribbon & trims, and papers.  These items are all from the Annual Catalog.  Thank you in advance for your patronage.  I always appreciate your business!

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon