Hang the Ornaments!

Hello, hello.  Do you ever see a stamp set and fall in love with it?  You know you'll be able to do so many things with it and it will be so wonderful to have.  But, oh my, not so much.  Yup, I seem to be having that problem.  I love the Hang an Ornament Bundle and was sure I'd have oodles of fun playing with it.  I'll admit it's been at least a month since I played with it and made a couple of cards.  But I'll also admit, I wasn't happy with either one, and I had no intention of showing either one of them.   So yesterday I went with a fallback plan and just used the ornaments with DSP.  Now, that was fun, and a very festive look too!

I really wish I had ordered the Take A Bow DSP.  It would be perfect for these ornaments.  But I didn't think I needed it, so time to make do with something in my retired stash of DSP.  I don't even remember the name of this paper or how many years ago it was available.  It was in my stash, so I used it.

The first step for making these cards was finding some prints that would work with the ornaments.  These old prints were from the same pack and were a mix of Old Olive, Real Red, Garden Green, and Certainly Celery.  (remember that color?)  I chose three prints that I liked together and die-cut several ornaments from each one.  I also die-cut those tiny ornament tops from some Gold Foil Specialty Paper. They're so tiny, but they really add just the right touch to your ornaments.

Next was choosing the card base.  I was planning on using either Old Olive or Real Red but decided to keep the background clean and simple, so it didn't detract from the ornaments.  As you can see I went with Basic White for the card base and again for the layer on top.  The base measures 8 1/2" 5 1/2", scored and folded in half.  The layer is 5 1/4" x 4".

Next was choosing a sentiment for this design.  'Celebrate' comes from the Iconic Imagery Bundle which is an Online Exclusive item.  Love the font and especially the size of this word.  It was stamped near the bottom left of the layer using Real Red ink.  Keep it low to accommodate the ornaments.  I wanted to add the 'Christmas' to the sentiment and found one in the Greetings of the Season set.  This is also an Online Exclusive Bundle.  It's stamped with Read Red ink too.

Next, it was time to play around with placement of the ornaments.  If you check the first picture closely, you'll find that all three are layered differently.  This is the last one I did, and I like it the best.  You can always choose a different layout to suit your fancy, but this was my favorite.

After laying out where I wanted the ornaments, I lightly marked with a pencil underneath where the ornament cap was located.  Using the gold ribbon from the Gold & Silver 1/8" Trim combo Pack I added the hangers.  It's added without cutting the ribbon first.  I put an inch of Tear & Tape from my pencil mark down into the ornament area.  Then attached an end of the ribbon on this and pulled to the top of the card.  Trimmed it an inch or so above the card so there's plenty of overlap to attach to the back of the card.  Do this for all three of the ornaments.  Turn the layer over and use Tear & Tape to attach all three ends to the back of the layer.

Next the ornaments are attached.  On this card, the two outer ornaments are attached flat to the card front.  The middle one is attached with several Dimensionals.   At this time, I used 'green glue' to attach the layer to the front of the card base.

And then for the bling.  After playing around with several ideas, I realized I would really prefer to add these tiny Real Red Rhinestones that are retired.  But they were perfect for this card.

Hope this card gives you some ideas for using this set.  It's such a simple card to make, but it looks very festive and fun.  If you don't want a red and green card, try some other combos, or even just gold and silver prints together.  Wouldn't that be elegant?

That's it for today.  I really need to get going on getting the house festive looking too.  And did someone mention cookie baking?  Not a single one so far.  I'm really slipping this year.  But four of us ladies did get all the cards for the church shut-ins put together and mailed out yesterday.  One thing marked off my list, but there's at least a hundred more things on that list to take care of yet.  Yikes!  I need to hurry quicker!

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon