Stampin' Up! Christmas Pines for Joy of Sets Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to another Joy of Sets Blog Hop!  We are a group of crafters' from around the world who love to share our love of paper crafting.  If you have hopped over from Fiona and her lovely card or if you are starting here with me, welcome - I hope you enjoy our hop and find lots of inspiration along the way.

For our final hop of 2018 we were asked to make a Christmas card.

I don't know about you but I do like (wherever possible), to make special cards for the people in my life.  Two such people are my lovely Aunty Doreen and her partner Jeff.

Aunty D won't mind me saying that she is an Octogenarian and that she likes simple, non fussy and quite traditional cards.

Not my usual style - but I aim to please!

I decided to keep things really simple using just two colours along with Very Vanilla (VV) for my card base and layers.

Old Olive

Soft Suede

Very Vanilla

The first thing I did was find a suitable sentiment. 

I prepared my card base with the fold at the top as I know that Aunty D likes to hang her cards from ribbons and she does not like cards that hang the wrong way!

I cut some simple layers in VV and reached for the Old Olive ink and a stamp set called Christmas Pines.

I've used these stamps and thinlits ever such a lot - I love how versatile and easy to use they are.

I stamped both branches using Old Olive ink to the centre panel and the top left corner of the first card layer.

I then used a Stampin' Write Marker (brush tip end) in Soft Suede to change the colour of the stem.  

Top Tip
Use small, gentle strokes with the pen to create the line.  This looks less harsh than a solid line and looks more natural too.

I stamped several of the smaller pine cones onto scrap VV card - the background image was 'stamped off' first.  I cut out with the coordinating thinlit.

Although Aunty D likes simple cards she is not averse to a bit of sparkle so I found an old paint brush to use with the Vegas Gold Shimmer Paint.  I love this paint - there are so many different ways to use it and, believe me, a little goes a long way!

I added tiny strokes to the bottom of each stamped triangle.

One of the pine cones has been adhered with Stampin' Dimensionals.

As I was looking at the finished panel I realised it needed something more.

I tried adding pearls but they did not look quite right.  So, as I still had a little paint left on my brush I decided to use it!

Voila - beautiful golden pearls to finish off my project.

Top Tip
Paint the pearls on the backing sheet.  Painting them once they are on your card is not pretty - don't ask!  The pearls do take a little time to dry but they are worth the wait don't you think?

I added some gold cord to the first panel, wrapping around and adhering on the back before adding Dimensionals and adhering to the card base.  As a final touch I added a bow to the left.  Lots of dimension with the project - each layer has been adhered with Dimensionals.

Here is the completed card and envelope; as usual, the inside of the card and the envelope are stamped to coordinate.

I hope Aunty D and Jeff enjoy their card - it will be on its way to them very soons!   Once I got going iwith this project it was very quick to make and would be good for batch making.  Just think of all the different stamps you have ... and use them! 

Thanks for hopping along with us - we will be back in 2019 to share lots more inspiration.  I would love to hear what you think of my project, why not leave a comment below?

Next up is Heather who will have another lovely project to share with you - just click on the link below.

Happy crafting!

Susan xx




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