I’ve been a bit preoccupied lately (jobs and visitors will do that to you) and haven’t done a challenge in a while. I’ve also been finding it hard to make things that I like. Coincidence? 🙂
So this morning I went looking for a good colour combination and found it at Hand Stamped Sentiments.
I left the cardstock in the appropriate colours out on my table and looked at them from time to time. I eventually decided that I wanted to use Stampin’ Up!’s Wondrous Wreath stamp set along with the matching framelits. First I stamped on very vanilla card stock which looked great, but probably not terribly innovative. So then I decided to emboss in clear on the soft sky – forgetting that of course the subsequent stamping wouldn’t work. So then I decided to approach it backwards.
I first cut out the middle of the wreath using the framelit – this makes it much easier to line things up. Cutting it out later is definitely harder. Then I stamped the second layer of leaves in garden green – this is a tad tricky because you don’t have the first layer to help you line up. I looked at my previous version and figured where the garden green leaves should be relative to the middle cut out. Then I took the real red and stamped the berries, trying to line them up with the garden green leaves. After this I stamped what should be the first layer of leaves – or at least the layer with the most leaves – and stamped in versamark. I sprinkled the clear embossing powder over and used the heat tool. As an aside, I can’t decide if the heat tool, the big shot or the stamp-a-ma-jig are my favourite tools. Certainly I’d hate to craft without any of them.
Since the design of this stamp set means that the second layer of leaves is right on top of the first, this means that I have embossing powder over both the soft sky and garden green leaves. After heating, everything is lovely and shiny. Using the wonderful wreath framelits to cut out the word Joy I found that the garden green was just a bit, well, drab. So I grabbed my versamark pad and pressed it over a piece of garden green and sprinkled clear embossing powder all over it and heated it. I then cut out the joy and now it’s not drab. It’s shiny and stands up to the wreath. Here’s a close up. I failed to get the shine on the wreath itself, but the joy does glisten.
I popped up the wreath with dimensionals and adhered it to a soft sky base. I did my Susan Itell inspired envelope and lined it with the backgrounds DSP in soft sky.
I like how you’ve used the required colours, Liz. Using the lightest colour for the largest area keeps it light and bright. This might be my favourite wreath card that you’ve done.
This is a great card and a super informative post. I love your reverse approach to adding the shine of the embossing powder. And the lined envelope is the perfect finishing touch for presenting such a fabulous card. Many thanks for joining in our color challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments. Smiles, Elizabeth
Elizabeth – Thanks for your kind words and for taking the time to comment.
I love your simple but stunning card! This is definitely a card to CASE. Thanks for playing at Hand Stamped Sentiments.
Thanks Genevieve. It’s a huge compliment to have someone want to CASE a card.
This is so lovely and elegant! I love the shine on the wreath and sentiment, it makes it so special! Thanks for playing the color combo at HSS! Erika
Thanks Erika – I appreciate you taking the time to stop by and comment.
This is a beautiful card. I love the simplicity of it. Great use of our color challenge. Thanks for playing with us this week at HSS.
Thanks Robbie. I probably wouldn’t have selected those colours without the challenge and I’m really pleased with how it came out. Thanks for the colour combination. 🙂
This card is stunning! I love the soft sky leaves on the wreath…makes for a fun and not so traditional Christmas card. Thanks for playing along with us at HSS!
I LOVE your card, and the choice to make the wreath blue rather than green, genius!! Thanks so much for sharing with us at HSS. Take Care~ Erin