Hi Friends! Sharing some more homemade cheer that I created for the Hero Arts HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive. The cards collected by Hero Arts will be donated to the Bay Area Rescue Mission in December. I hope you find inspiration in this holiday card installment for creating your own cheerful, Christmas cards.
I started out by stamping the Hero Arts Fireplace stamp set’s three Christmas stockings onto a scrap piece of Canson XL Bristol Smooth cardstock using Lawn Fawn Jet Black ink since I was going to watercolor the images. I used the Zig Clean Color Real Brush watercolor pens in Light Green and Geranium Red to watercolor all three stockings. After they were dry, I used some smaller elements from the Spellbinders Christmas Blooms die set and die cut enough to add three or four pieces of greenery/blooms to fill each of the stockings – I glued those into place with Ranger/Tim Holtz Distress Collage Medium. Next, I applied a pretty thick layer of Distress Collage Medium to the top cuff of each stocking and generously covered the wet glue with Pink & Main Flock With Glitter in the color Sparkling Cottontail.
For the card front panels, the first one was cut to A2 size from some Christmas themed, patterned cardstock I had in my stash, and I cut the smaller panel out of more Canson XL Bristol Smooth cardstock using the second to the largest die from the Paper Rose Stitched Rectangles die set. Using Hero Arts Script Bold Prints background stamp, I stamped the image onto the smaller, white cardstock panel with Altenew Embossing Ink and applied Brutus Monroe Alabaster White Embossing Powder all over the inked panel, tapped off the excess, and used my heat tool to melt the powder. For the emboss-resist technique, I used Distress Oxide ink in Antique Linen and a blending brush and covered the entire cardstock panel with the Antique Linen ink. Once that was completed, I took a microfiber cloth to buff away the excess ink that was on top of the embossed background image. Next, I used a foam dome blending tool and Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink to add a small amount of color to the all the edges of the panel to add a bit of dimension and interest.
I used the Hero Arts Fireplace stamp set again and stamped the Merry Christmas onto a piece of Lawn Fawn Vellum with Altenew Embossing Ink and covered with Ink on 3 Gold Rush Ultra Fine Embossing Powder. I heat set the embossing powder and trimmed the strip of vellum to 1-1/4” wide and wrapped it across the bottom of the smaller, inked card front panel and simply taped the ends on the back side since they wouldn’t be seen by the recipient.
I created the swag across the top of the inked panel by using the small poinsettia die and both evergreen dies from the Spellbinders Christmas Blooms die set. I used red cardstock for the poinsettia and cut it twice from a scrap of red cardstock and die cut each of the fir dies from green cardstock three times for a total of six pieces. I glued the fir branch pieces to the card front, glued the poinsettia die cuts together and then glued them to the center of the fir swag. The final touch to the swag was to add a matte gold embellishment pearl to the center of the poinsettia.
To wrap this card up I attached the three stockings to the card front using Simon Says Stamp 3D Foam Squares and applied Simon Says Stamp Big Momma Foam Tape to the back of the inked panel and attached it to the plaid cardstock. I used some Christmas Red Stickles to the center of the red flowers in the stockings and Holly Green Pops of Color to the center of the pink and yellow flowers. I attached the card front to an A2, top folding card base and this piece of Christmas cheer is completed!
Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!
Until next time…