Carols of Christmas -- Deck the Halls Take 2

09/03/2017

Hello!

I hope that you've had a chance to look over the Holiday Catalog. With so many great new products, it's a little overwhelming to make a decision, isn't it? I know I had that problem. If you haven't had a chance to look at the Holiday Catalog, you can find it at the right sidebar of this blog page. If you'd like a paper copy and live in the United States, I'd love to send you one. Please e-mail me using the link on the right sidebar and I'll get one to you.

The Carols of Christmas stamp set was an early release from the Holiday Catalog and there have been lots of ideas out in the blog-o-sphere using this stamp set and the coordinating Card Front Builder Thinlits dies for the Big Shot. Here's a card I designed for my August Stamp Clubs that features the Carols of Christmas stamp set. This card uses the same design as the previous card made using this greeting (click here to see that card). The difference is the background and the embellishments.

This card begins with a card base of Cherry Cobbler cardstock. A panel of Whisper White cardstock was randomly stamped with the poinsettia flower using Cherry Cobbler ink. The small leaf stamp was stamped next to each of the flowers using Garden Green ink. Be sure to move the leaf around the flowers so that it's not in the same general place for every flower.

Note that the leaf stamp has a space between the two leaf and single leaf sides of the stamp so that the leaves can sit on either side of a flower petal. Since this is a red rubber stamp set, many of my stamp club members were concerned that they could not see where they placed the leaf stamp. For this project, I advised them to note where the space was on the stamp label, then identify a flower petal to "surround", and just stamp. While this was a creative stretch for many of them, they soon realized that as long as the leaves were near the flower, everything was OK. Especially after they completed the card front. This is because once the focal point is placed on the card front, the background is just that -- background.

The background panel was matted with a slightly larger panel of Garden Green cardstock. The two panels were adhered at the center of the card front.

The "Deck The Halls" greeting was stamped on a piece of Whisper White cardstock using Garden Green ink. The flourished straight line image was stamped above "Deck" and below "Halls" using Cherry Cobbler ink. The greeting was die cut with the Big Shot using the largest of the square Stitched Shapes Framelits. The greeting was matted with a piece of Cherry Cobbler cardstock die cut with the Big Shot using the largest of the scalloped squares from the Layering Squares Framelits. A piece of Gold 1/8" ribbon was folded in half and adhered behind the Cherry Cobbler mat so that the ends of the ribbon extend below the greeting. The greeting was adhered at the upper center of the card front with the top, left, and right edges of the scalloped die cut 3/8" from the top, left, and right edges of the Whisper White background panel.

A piece of Gold 1/8" ribbon was tied into a bow and adhered at the upper center of the scalloped square mat using a rolled up Mini Glue Dot. Paper Snips were used to trim the ends of the Gold ribbon extending below the greeting.

The inside sentiment area of the card was lined with a piece of Whisper White cardstock. The poinsettia flower was stamped three times at the upper left and lower right corners of the liner using Cherry Cobbler ink. The leaf image was stamped near each of the flowers using Garden Green ink. The "Best Wishes for the Season" sentiment from the Holly Berry Happiness stamp set was stamped near the upper center of the liner using Garden Green ink.

The poinsettia flower was randomly stamped across the flap of the Medium Whisper White Envelope using Cherry Cobbler ink. The leaf image was stamped next to each flower using Garden Green ink. [Tip: Place a scrap piece of paper between the envelope flap and the body of the envelope to ensure that the stamping occurs only on the envelope flap.]

When you're thinking about making Christmas cards, it sometimes becomes a difficult decision whether to use one stamp set and make all the cards exactly the same (which can become tedious if you need to make a large number of cards) OR to purchase multiple stamp sets to make a variety of cards. If you look at both of my Deck the Halls cards, you can see that the same colors were used for cardstock and ink for both cards; the Layering Squares Framelits and Stitched Shapes Framelits were used for both cards. The background for the first card features an embossed panel vs the stamped background shown for this card. The embellishment for the first card uses the Card Front Builder Thinlits to die cut the holly pieces and the second card features Gold ribbon. Small changes, but a big difference in the look of each card.

My message? If you want to contain your costs for Christmas cards, do your research. Use Pinterest, Google searches, Splitcoast Stampers, etc. to see all the great projects using the stamp set you're interested in to decide whether it will lend itself to the kind of variety that will ensure that the cards you make meet your vision of the kind of greetings you want to send your friends and family.

Card Measurements --

Cherry Cobbler: 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" scored at 4-1/4" along the 8-1/2" length; Garden Green: 4" x 5-1/4"; Whisper White: 4" x 4", 3-3/4" x 5", 4" x 5-1/4"; Gold 1/8" ribbon: 2 @ 6" each

Supplies I used to make this card --

Stamps: Carols of Christmas, Holly Berry Happiness; Inks: Garden Green, Real Red; Cardstock: Garden Green, Real Red, Whisper White; Embellishments: Gold 1/8" ribbon; Adhesives: Fast Fuse, Mini Glue Dots; Tools: Stampin' Trimmer, Simply Scored Scoring Tool, Bone Folder, Paper Snips, Big Shot w/Magnetic Platform, Layering Squares Framelits, Stitched Shapes Framelits; Other: Medium Whisper White Envelope