CASEing Christmas – Day 7

I can’t believe we’ve already hit day seven of the CASEing Christmas class at StampNation! This week has just flown by and I’ve learned so much. I feel so much more confident about how to CASE a card while still making it my own.

Catherine was our guide once again for day seven of class. Here’s a snippet peek of the card she made for us to CASE:

Here are the elements of her card that I chose to incorporate into mine:

• Diamond pattern for the background – We both used patterned paper.
• Red mat on main panel – She used a poppy red, but I went for a cranberry red.
• Gold glittery die cut sentiment – She used a gold glitter embossing powder, but I used a gold glitter cardstock.

Here’s my finished card:

Between the paper colors I chose and the classic ornament shapes, I think my card has a very nostalgic feel. The patterned paper has a vintage wallpaper look to me. I think the combination of the cranberry and vanilla cardstocks also really lend to that vintage look.

I definitely opted to go for a more subtle diamond pattern for my background on my card. I used one of the patterned papers from the White Pines paper pack from Close to My Heart. For my other papers, I used Cranberry cardstock, also from Close to My Heart for the mat, and some Very Vanilla from Stampin’ Up for my card base and main panel.

When it came time for the sentiment, I realized I didn’t have any holiday word dies. I used my Happy word die from Winnie & Walter on a previous card and decided to check out their website to see if they had any holiday words. I was thrilled to find not only did they have some, they had several available as digital cut files! I immediately purchased several of the digital packages, including their In a Word: Holiday Words Digital Elements set.

After downloading my cut file, I quickly imported the SVG images into my Design Space software. I was then able to quickly cut multiple copies using my Cricut Explore. Since I was planning to layer my die cuts, I added some Stick It adhesive to the back of both papers. This made it so easy to adhere my layers together after they were cut.

For the hanging ornaments, I used the small ornaments and bow stamps from the Joy to the Woods stamp set by Lawn Fawn. I stamped them using Memento Tuxedo Blank ink and then colored them using my Copic markers. Here are the colors I used:

• Red: R24, R46, R59
• Teal: BG11, BG13, BG15
• Chocolate: E55, E57, E59

I know the chocolate ornament seems a bit odd, but I wanted to pull in the little bit of chocolate color in the diamonds on the background paper. Once the ornaments were colored, I used a VersaMarker to add a touch of embossing ink to the tops of each ornament.  Next, I heat embossed them using some gold embossing powder. I added the hanging lines using a 0.1 Copic Multiliner pen and a t-square ruler to keep them nice and straight.

After I had the card assembled, I added a bit more detail to the ornaments. First, I added two coats of clear Wink of Stella to give them a lot of shimmer. Next, I added a coat of Glossy Accents to give them some shine and dimension. The Glossy Accents really helps accentuate the Wink of Stella, too. I meant to add a little highlight in the upper right hand of each ornament using a white gel pen before adding the Glossy Accents, but I completely forgot. Oops!

I’m entering this card in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – the current theme is Starts with the Letter N. I this the nostalgic look of this card qualifies for that.
• Christmas Card Challenges – the current theme is Anything Goes.