With a daily blog to write I am always looking for inspiration for my next project (or six). Sometimes I know exactly where an idea came from, but not today. Today was one of those days where my card seemed to just happen without any conscious effort on my part. Perhaps that’s how I sat down in a heatwave with the music-themed Merry Melody 3D Embossing Folder and ended up with a Christmas card. However, having chosen a purple colour scheme contrasted with black, this card is anything but traditional.

MERRY MELODY

I all started with that Merry Melody 3D Embossing Folder and a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Basic White Card. After embossing the card I decided to bring out the embossing by adding a little ink over the surface with a Blending Brush. As I looked through the 50 current colours of Stampin’ Up! ink pads I was drawn to the purples I hadn’t used in a while. That’s when I pulled out the lightest one in the range, Fresh Freesia.

After adding the ink to the embossed card I then thought it would look good if the edges were a bit darker. So I chose Orchid Oasis ink and applied the ink as before with a Blending Brush. That was much better.

I still hadn’t decided what kind of card this would be but I knew I wanted the embossing as my coordinating feature. So next I embossed and inked the flap of a Basic White Medium Envelope. This was followed by embossing and inking the bottom edge of a second 4″ x 5-1/4″ layer of Basic White Card.

By now I knew I wanted a darker card base and grabbed my stock of Orchid Oasis Card. Unfortunately I hadn’t realised that I only had scraps left and none was big enough to make an A2 card base. So that’s how, after a little trial and error I ended up making my card base from Basic Black Card.

With the card base ready I then used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to fix the partially embossed layer to the inside. Now all I needed was to figure out what to do on the front.

CUSTOM-COLOURED RIBBON

Having started with standard weight Basic White Card I was concerned it would buckle without any extra support. So rather than redo the layer using Thick Basic White Card I simply glued a second piece of Basic White Card onto the back.

Next I cut 6″ of Basic White 3/4″ Herringbone Ribbon and laid it across the embossed layer. Nice, but not particularly exciting. That’s when I remembered my Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. Using the side of the brush tip of the light Fresh Freesia marker I coloured half the width of the ribbon along the entire length. Then I swiched to the dark Fresh Freesia and coloured the other half, again all the way along the 6″ length. So far so good, but the transition between the two colours was a bit obvious. That was easily fixed by going over the hard line with the light Fresh Freesia marker to blend them a little more.

Now I wanted to finish off the ombre look with a teeny bit of very dark purple. It was only then as I went back to my collection of Stampin’ Blends I realised that I’d never ordered the Orchid Oasis markers! So instead I used dark Highland Heather to add a thin line of darker purple along the very edge of the ribbon along the dark Fresh Freesia colouring. This tiny detail made a huge difference to the ribbon and I set it aside to dry for a minute or two.

MERRY & BRIGHT

All I needed now was a sentiment and I was hoping for something to link with the music theme. That’s when I came across the Brightest Glow Stamp Set. Some of the sentiments reminded me of parts of Christmas carols so that kind of sealed the deal. In the end I chose “All is merry and bright” and stamped it onto some Thick Basic White Card using VersaMark ink. Next I sprinkled the sticky ink with black powder from the Basics Embossing Powders pack. After tapping off the excess, I removed a few stray specks before melting the rest using my Heat Tool set on 2 (high).

Now the ribbon was dry (and quite stiff) I wrapped it around the embossed layer about 1″ from the bottom and secured it on the back with Tear & Tape Adhesive. With that done I mounted the layer onto the card base using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

Going back to the sentiment I decided to cut it out using the decorative circle from the Labels Aglow Dies. Then I put pieces of Stampin’ Dimensionals on the back. However, before attaching it to the card I wanted to add some loops of silver cord from the Simply Elegant Trim pack. So I cut a 12″ piece of the cord and wove the loops between the Stampin’ Dimensionals on the back of the sentiment. Then having removed the backing from the Dimensionals I fixed the sentiment to the card front and my card was complete.

I love how this card turned out and can’t believe it’s the first time I’ve coloured the Herringbone Ribbon. You can certainly expect to see that technique again.

PRODUCT LIST