After yesterday’s marathon paper piecing session I resolved to make today’s project much more quickly. It’s the 24th, which means another month has passed since I suggested you make a start on your Christmas crafting. Sadly I didn’t take my own advice and now it’s now only five months away and I’ve done very little. So today I thought I’d make an effort using the Peaceful Boughs Stamp Set and coordinating Beautiful Boughs Dies. These appeared in last year’s Holiday Catalogue and were carried over into the 2020/2021 Annual Catalogue. However to change things up, I decided to bring in a colour that wasn’t available last year, Cinnamon Cider.

A BACKGROUND FOR ALL SEASONS

Did you know that you don’t need “Christmas” patterned paper to make a Christmas Card? I started today by choosing a pretty Old Olive and gold foil pattern from the Ornate Garden 12″ x12″ Specialty Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack. Then keeping it simple I cut a 2″ x 5-1/2″ strip. This meant I could make twelve of this card design from one sheet if I wished.

Next, for my card base I chose Mossy Meadow Card, and cut and scored it using my Paper Trimmer. It was only at this point I noticed that my card was damaged and the corner was bent. It reminded me of a tip that I shared some time ago, so I took my own advice to repair the situation. So I placed the front of the card into the Tasteful Textile 3D Embossing Folder and ran it though my machine. This added a lovely texture to my card base, as well as making the creased corner disappear.

After that I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to attach the DSP strip down the centre of my card front. Then on either side of the DSP I glued a 1/8″ strip of Old Olive Card.

At this point my card could still be suitable for any season or occasion, it would be the sentiment and embellishments that defined it.

CINNAMON AND OLIVE

For the front of the card I chose the large fir branch from the Beautiful Boughs Dies. I started by cutting it out from a piece of Old Olive Card. At this point the shape was OK but the colour was very flat. So I decided to add some depth using Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers.

I began by colouring parts of the stem very roughly using the light Cinnamon Cider marker. Then I added some dark Cinnamon Cider marker over the top. I wasn’t blending the colours, or even colouring the whole branch, just adding random lines here and there. Once that was done I did the same thing over the ‘needles’ of the branch using the light and dark Old Olive marker. Then I fixed the branch to the front of the card with liquid glue.

I always think that the branch looks unfinished without a few pine cones so creating them was my next task. The Peaceful Boughs Stamp Set has two different sized pine cone images and today I chose the smaller one. Using Cinnamon Cider ink I stamped the cone twice onto Cinnamon Cider Card. Then I cut out the images using the coordinating die from the Beautiful Boughs Dies.

Next I attached both cones to the branch on the front of the card base. To make it look more realistic I tucked one under some of the needles, Then the second pine cone went slightly higher up, just overlapping the first one.

For my sentiment I went back to the Peaceful Boughs Stamp Set and large “Season’s Greetings”. I stamped it onto Thick Very Vanilla Card using Cinnamon Cider ink, then cut it out using another of the Beautiful Boughs Dies. With that done I fixed the sentiment to the card front with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

FINISHING TOUCHES

All I had to do now was add a coordinating liner for my card and create a matching envelope. I could have used pieces of the DSP for this but instead opted to repeat the branch and pine cone. This time however I would do this using just stamps and ink.

First, in the centre of the flap of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope I stamped the smallest of the pine branch images using Old Olive ink. Then I added a single small pine cone using Cinnamon Cider ink.

Next I stamped the branch and pine cone in the top left corner on a layer of Very Vanilla Card. Finally I fixed the layer on the inside of my card base and my project was complete.

I’m really happy with how quickly this card came together, especially after yesterday’s very involved design. So the question now is, will you be doing some Christmas crafting anytime soon?

You can see some of my other projects using the Peaceful Boughs Stamp Set and Beautiful Boughs Dies in these earlier blog posts:

• Peaceful Boughs sneak peek
• Beautiful Boughs sneak peek
• An inky idea – faded edges
• It’s a wrap (Stampin’ Up! style of course)

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