A Child is Born

Hello my friends.  I've been on a stamping tear the past week.  There were so many cards that needed to be finished and in the mail - not only for the home-bound at church, but birthdays, anniversaries, and my own Thanksgiving cards for family and friends.  Whew!  Somehow, I've gotten a little behind.  Ok, make that a lot behind!  But things are looking up and I'm pretty much back on track again.  Of course, it's now time to start planning the Christmas cards for the home-bound that will be going out the first week in December.  So, my head is in a whirl with all kinds of designs.  I thought I'd share one of the Christmas card designs that is ready for the ladies to put together.  Short and sweet today.  If you can't stand seeing anything that's retired, don't look now.  Just mosey on to another blog.  I've used two different retired specialty papers on the card.  Of course, you can take a peek just for the idea., even if you don't have these particular products in your stash.

My plan was to use one of the Branching Out dies to cut a layer to stamp on.  The 3rd largest die cut a layer of Basic Beige cardstock.  I realized it was just a smidgeon too small for the stamp, so I improvised.  Mary & Joseph were stamped over to the right and slightly off the piece.  I used Early Espresso ink for stamping.  The stars from the same set were also stamped more over Mary instead of in the middle of the design.

After stamping, I wanted more definition on them.  I used a Blender Pen and just ran it over the stamped lines to soften and blur them a little.  Depending on how much I went over the lines decided how dark the lines were.  I went over Joseph's clothing more than Mary's to make it heavier and darker.  I decided not to add anything to the stars to not lose any of the fine detail.

The largest Branching Out die was used to cut a vellum layer.  This is one of those retired items - Vellum Basics Specialty DSP.  I liked the diagonal white stripes on this.  Doesn't it make a nice backdrop for this?  

The stamped layer was attached to the vellum layer using adhesive.

It still needed another layer in there to make the design pop.  I remembered the Oxidized Copper Specialty DSP that was from a year or two ago.  I gave it a try and loved it!  A layer that measures 5 1/4" x 4" was cut.  This was attached to the Pecan Pie cardstock base that was already cut.  

The vellum and stamped layers were added to the base.  I used Dimensionals for this to define the layers a bit.

After trying a good number of gems to add to the design, I decided to use the Cherry Cobbler & Pearl Adhesive-Backed Berries from last year.  The frosty pearlized one had a coppery iridescent tone to it that really enhanced the copper look that I had going on.  I wish you could see this in person.  The colors all blend and complement each other very nicely.

I spent a bit of time going back and forth about whether it needed a sentiment added to the design or not.  As you can see, I decided not to add anything else to the design.  I felt it would detract from the finished look.

Final look at this design.  I'm quite happy with the results of pulling all these odds and ends together to make these cards.  And I even got to use up some of my retired products.  Yay!  I think the recipients will like them too.  At least that's the plan!

Just a heads-up for future reference!

Stampin'Up! is having its first ever 

Black Friday Sale!!  

November 25th thru December 1st

Up to 40% off on select products!

This way you can get some shopping in before you head on out to the stores on Friday.  I don't have a list of what items will be on sale yet, so I can't share that with you.  It's going to be a surprise for me too!  But I'll to be checking what's on sale on the 25th you can be sure of that.

Okay, that's all I've got to share for today.  Enjoy your day and find some time to get creative.

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon