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Good morning! I have a fun new series starting today… I know lots of crafters feel that holiday crunch when it gets to be the beginning of December, and so I thought I would make a concerted effort to try to get a bit of a head start this year by dedicating one day a month on my blog to a holiday card! For this month, I used one of my most favorite new stamp sets from this past holiday season: Ornamental from Concord and 9th.
I always strive to make my holiday cards as flat (aka-easily mailed) as possible. When trying to make a flat card, masking is my best friend. I can get fabulous dimension with approximately zero layers and bulk. I started by die cutting the large ornament from Concord and 9th’s Ornamental die set from some masking paper and adhered it to the center of an A2 card base. You know the glow from those pretty, ethereal Christmas lights on your tree? When you turn all of the lights off and just sit by the light of your Christmas tree? That’s what I was going for with this card. I lightly blended Hot Mama and Sea Glass inks around the edge of the masking paper. There is just enough blue in both shades of ink to allow them to blend nicely with each other.
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After I had blended around the edge of the masking paper, I removed the mask and added the floral stamp from Ornamental to the lid of my MISTI. I wanted the floral details to be multi colored, as though they were reflecting the Christmas lights in my blending, so I added Sea Glass ink in a few spots on the stamp, then pressed the lid of my MISTI down, then added some Hot Mama ink in the spots that were left, but was sure to dab away some of the ink with a microfiber cloth to make a smoother transition between the two colors. I repeated this process until I was satisfied with the coverage. For the greeting, I used the lovely, scripty sentiment included in Ornamental that fits just perfectly amongst the floral detailed stamp. I stamped it using a trick my friend Lisa taught me: Distress Oxide inks are great for heat embossing!! I stamped it with Peacock Feathers Oxide ink, then embossed it with some sparkly turquoise embossing powder.
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To turn it into an “ornament,” I die cut the ornament topper from some sparkly silver glitter card stock and adhered it with liquid adhesive. Nice and flat and lots of sparkle…. perfect for Christmas! I love using non-traditional colors for holiday cards, and I think this series is going to allow me to explore lots of unique Christmas color combinations.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the first installment of The Twelve Cards of Christmas!! Have a marvelous day!
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