Reason for the Season Card

Hello folks!  Hope you all had a very blessed Thanksgiving this year with family and friends.  Right now, I'm so thankful that it's all over and I'm feeling more like myself.  I came down with an intestinal flu bug that wiped me out last Monday.  That means it's been a week, and I'm still worn out and barely getting anything done at all.  I was working on a design before this all happened and decided I'd share this with you.  Since I can't decide which one I prefer, you get both versions.   Then you get to decide which you like better.  OK?

The set I used here is A Child is Born.  I really love the simplicity of this set!  I've used this set several times playing around and it just keeps calling me back again and again.  Looking at the picture of the card, the images remind me of a snow globe because of the placement of the sentiment.  Hmm, just more ideas floating here.  I think I have an old snow globe stamp from a good number of years ago.  I'll have to get it out and see if they work together.  Oops.  Sorry for getting off track here.  Let's get on with the design...

The 'family' is stamped onto the largest circle of the Stylish Shapes Dies.  It's cut from Basic White cardstock and then stamped with Secret Sea ink.

To frame this, I used the 2nd largest circle dies from the Spotlight on Nature set.  It has a pretty eyelet design around the circle that just barely showed behind the white layer.  This layer is die-cut from the Peaceful Garden Glimmer Specialty Paper in the darkest color.  When I hold the finished card, this sparkles so pretty, but the camera just doesn't do it justice.  These were attached together using Tombow Liquid Glue.

The next step is to make the card base.  Basic White cardstock was used here.  It's cut at 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" and folded in half.  There is a Basic White layer that measures 5 1/4" x 4" that the background is built on.

The pretty DSP that was used is from the Peaceful Garden DSP.   I already had a strip of the starry print cut that was 1 1/2" wide.  This was cut to two 3 3/4" lengths for the design.  The center 'cloudy' layer measures 1 3/4" x 3 3/4" to fit into the design.  The three strips were positioned and attached to the Basic White layering piece using the Liquid Glue.

The white layer with the strips attached was then layered onto the folded card base.  Dimensionals were used for this to give it added definition.

Next the main image was added to the center of the design.  It was attached with Dimensionals.

The sentiment comes from the same set.  It's stamped on a 1/2" strip of Basic White using Secret Sea ink.  It was trimmed and the ends were flagged.  A skinny strip of Dimensionals were added along the center of the strip.  Then it was attached over the bottom edge of the circles.

Silver and White Sheer Ribbon was tied into a bow accent.  This was attached at the top of the circle with Mini Glue Dots to hold in place.

Lastly, three small Iridescent Pearls Basic Jewels were sprinkled on the design for a lovely accent.  

And that's the first one done.  I really liked the design and thought it would make sense to make another one right away to build up my Christmas card stash.  Well, that's when things started changing a little here and there.

I already had the 'family' stamped and both the white and glimmer layers die-cut.  So, I jumped right to the card base.  The base is still Basic White and folded in half like the first card.  The same white layer was cut to place the layers on.

The layers were again from the Peaceful Garden DSP pack.  While looking through the papers, this leafy print really called to me.  I thought I'd see how this went with the design.  To me, it really worked nicely.  This time, there was a 1 1/4" strip left over from another project.  This was trimmed to 3 3/4" long twice for the top and bottom layers.  This made the center opening wider, so a piece was cut at 2 7/16" to fit.  (2 1/2" was just a smidgeon too wide to fit so I adjusted it.  You could really use 2 3/8" to fit too.)  These layers were attached to the Basic White layer with Liquid Glue.

So, you need to tell me what you think.  I really love this design and think I'd like to make more to send out this year.  Do I make more of the first or second card?  Use the starry print or the leafy print?  Have the layers closer in size like the 1st card or have the center layer wider as in the 2nd card?  Oh dear, so many choices and decisions.  Please help and share your input with me!  Leave me a comment on which one you prefer.  I'm looking forward to hearing what you think.

Thanks for sharing some precious time with me.  I'm so blessed that you do.  I always appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment too!

Happy stamping and creating,

Sharon

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