Good Morning Fellow Stampers ~
Happy Monday! Off and running to an extremely hectic week ahead; and I'm fighting with a yucky cold and not feeling well . . . grrrrrrr. It is, however, the final working week for me of 2016!! Whoooo hooooooooooo. A wonderful holiday break is beckoning and I can hardly wait to sleep in a little, and having some time at home; maybe even get to read a book or two and just put my feet up. We'll see ;-)
It's the final Paper Players [PP325] challenge for 2016 before they go on holiday break just like Mojo Monday! It's going to give us lots of time and freedom to play without the constraints of challenge guidelines these next couple of weeks :-)
It's a color challenge this week; and today's design sort of just "fell into my lap" so to speak. I'm kind of excited with how today's card turned out :-)
I think, (my opinion only), that a December birthday is one of the most difficult; what a yucky time of year to have a birthday ~~ especially one that falls right on the Christmas holiday itself (and I happen to have one of those in this household). It's so difficult I think to make a December birthday stand out from all the other festivities.
I had a friend who had a birthday yesterday ~ and today's card is going to her. I hope it feels special and stands out from all the other going's on her life this month :-)
Doggone Delightful Stampin' Design Tips:
- Layerothology. Somewhat unplanned, this card ended up being a "clean and simple" design with a lot of white space, including white-on-white which can make for a very clean and crisp card. With the Silver foil matting and accents, it's quite lovely :-) The card base for this card is cut from Thick Whisper White cardstock, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", scored at 4 1/4" - a regular A2 side fold card. The background layer is Whisper White embossed with the beautiful Pine Bough TIEF, and matted with Silver Foil.
Some Technique Tips For You: 1) Always use a scoring tool to make lines. Don’t just fold by hand. This often results in buckling and wrinkling of the cardstock, depending on its “weight”. A great card deserves a great foundation on which to build. Also, use a Bone Folder to create a crisp edge on all of your folds. But be careful…too much pressure can lead to unsightly “cracked” edges. 2) Play with your embossing folders for different looks. The Pine Bough TIEF appears to emboss to only the upper right-hand side of your paper. To get the look from another direction, turn and play with the position of your paper in the embossing folder. You'll love what you come up with :-) 3) Save on Foil! If you're like me, you are careful with how you use your specialty papers. Foil only comes 2 to a pack, so to make it stretch further, cut the middle out of your matting pieces. i.e. - for this card I cut a piece of Foil for matting that is 5 3/8" x 4 1/8" - and then I cut the middle out of the piece (1/4" in all the way around) since only the 1/8" edge was showing from under the Whisper White anyway! :-) Now I have salvaged a great piece of foil for another project.
- Faux Gift Boxes. These adorable boxes were created using the Stitched Shape Framelits (the squares). To create these sweet packages I first stamped some "ribbon" using the Timeless Textures stamp set, and the candy cane stripe from the Candy Cane Christmas stamp set. They are stamped in Versamark and embossed with Silver and Gold embossing powders respectively. The great big "bows" are created from the floral stem in the Sunshine Wishes die set, with the stem cut off. They are gold and silver foil layered bows for each package. Pretty fun, huh? :-) Sweet and Simple!!
- Celebrate a Birthday. The nice thing about this card design is you can use it for Christmas, New Years, or a birthday - whatever your need at the moment! This sentiment is from the Shake and Celebrate stamp set. Because it's a photopolymer stamp set, I can curve the stamp slightly to match the Duet Banner punch, and wah lah!! Stamped in Versamark, this is also embossed in Silver embossing powder.
- Turn to the Inside. These sentiments are a combination from two different holiday sets - the top sentiment is from the Frosted Medallions stamp set; and the "Happy Birthday" is from Shake and Celebrate. Stamped with Versamark and embossed with Gold embossing powder, they coordinate and glisten perfectly in tune with the Gold foil matted frame around the edge of the Whisper White overlay. The inside of the card is a nice compliment to the Silver focus of the front of the card.
And there you have it! :-) A "clean and simple" card designed for a December birthday; but really useful for the entire holiday season!! I hope you enjoyed :-) As aways, I'm only an email away if you have questions on any of my designs, or need any assistance with Stampin' Up! products.
Until Next Time . . .
