Next month I’ll be celebrating 10 years as an Independent Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator. Of course I’ve been papercrafting for even longer than that. However all my experience doesn’t stop me making rookie mistakes. This is exactly what happened this morning as I designed a Christmas card using the Joy To You Stamp Set. Despite my inevitable frustration, like most cardmaking mistakes this one was fixable. It just took a little patience and the spatula attachment on my trusty Take Your Pick Tool. Here’s the finished project, albeit a little late.
WINTER TREES
I started my design with a pretty blue tree design from the Winter Meadow 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack. First I cut a 2-1/4″ x 6″ piece and attached it to the flap of a Basic White Medium Envelope with Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow).
Next I cut a 3-3/4″ x 3-3/4″ piece of DSP, along with a 3-7/8″ x 3-7/8″ piece of Night of Navy Card. Using liquid glue again I mounted the DSP onto the card layer. Then I cut 5″ of Night of Navy 3/8″ Bordered Ribbon and wrapped it around the middle of the layers, securing it on the back with Tear & Tape Adhesive.
Finally from a scrap of the DSP I fussy cut around some trees and glued them in the bottom right-hand corner of a 4″ x 5-1/4″ layer of Basic White Card.
For my card base I chose Misty Moonlight Card to coordinate with the paper. After cutting and scoring the card I folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder. With that done I glued the decorated Basic White layer on the inside.
JOY AND PAIN
Now all I needed was a sentiment and I chose the large “Wishing you a very merry Christmas” from the Joy to You Stamp Set. Initially I was just going to stamp it onto Thick Basic White Card with Night of Navy ink, but then I had an idea. First I tapped the stamp onto a VersaMark ink pad, then I immediately tapped it on the Night of Navy ink pad. Now I was ready to stamp the sentiment onto the Thick Basic White Card.
From there I sprinkled the sentiment with clear powder from the Basics Embossing Powders pack and tapped off the excess. Then after removing a few stray specks I melted the rest with my Heat Tool set on 2 (high). Now I had my navy sentiment but it had the raised shine of heat embossing!
Once the embossing had cooled I cut out the sentiment using the middle-sized ‘rectangular’ die from the Something Fancy Dies set. Then I put Stampin’ Dimensionals on the back before mounting it onto the layered DSP. Using more Stampin’ Dimensionals I added the assembled layers to the front of the card base.
Finally I added three pale blue/green embellishments from the Festive Pearls pack and I was finished.
At least I thought I was. That is until I was editing my photos and realised that I’d failed to check the direction of the trees before attaching the sentiment. Of course the sentiment was the right way up on the card base, but the trees were upside-down! I couldn’t ignore that, so I pulled out my Take Your Pick tool and inserted the spatula attachment. Then I carefully separated the layers from the card base, before removing the sentiment from the DSP layer. With that done I turned the trees around and reattached the sentiment. Then I put the layers back onto the card front and I really was done.
The question now is, was my mistake the result of too much coffee, or not enough?
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