Last Christmas Card for 2019

Hello, Crafters.

When I went to the Candlelight Service on Sunday evening I received several Christmas cards from members of the congregation, which came as a lovely surprise! I’d made cards for the ladies in my house group plus another two couples, but I now needed four more cards! Yesterday I made four identical cards using the sentiment and the bible passage inside which I’d used for all my Church cards. They were both from the God’s Peace Stamp Set, which I’d used for the other cards for Church.

When I’d finished the four cards I thought of someone else I’d wanted to send a card to. I decided to make a card that I could also share with you today. The design was based on the same “sketch” that could have been used to design the card I’d made earlier yesterday afternoon. I changed the colour and the images but stayed with the sentiment and the bible passage. I chose Blueberry Bushel as my colour, but I have no idea why apart from the fact I think it’s a gorgeous colour; it just isn’t a traditional Christmas colour! I was going to use Silver Foil but I didn’t like the way it was going. It made me remember the card I shared several days ago, which was Shaded Spruce and Silver. You might remember I said it looked too dark! I changed to Whisper White and it looks so much better!

I tested to see what the card would look like if I had Whisper White as the top layer with bells with a blue base and white die-cuts, and then vice-versa. You can see the winner! The first job I did was to heat emboss both the bible passage and the sentiment using Whisper White Stampin’ Emboss Powder. When I write my personal greeting inside the card I’ll use my white gel pen.

I decided to do some partial dry embossing on the top layer, which was easier to do when I knew where the sentiment was. There was also quite a wide margin that allowed for error because I was planning to use a ribbon the 5/8″ wide to go around the top two layers! I sprayed the top part at the back of the top layer with water because I was going to use the Subtle Dynamic Embossing Folder.

I used a retired 5/8″ Whisper White Satin Ribbon to wrap around where the dry embossed area stopped/started and adhered the ends at the back. Next, I laid a layer of the  5/8″ Whisper White Polka Dot Tulle Ribbon over the top of the satin ribbon and anchored it down at the back. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make the bow for the bells but decided to go ahead and make the bells while I think about it!I made two larger and two smaller bells and decided the larger bells looked much better. Using Dimensionals I adhered them to the front of the card. By this time I’d decided to try to make a bow using two ribbons! I found some old half-inch white ribbon and lined it up with some of the Polka Dot Ribbon. I found it relatively easy to tie a bow using the bunny ears method. Not surprisingly, one of the ribbon tails had the polka dots behind the white ribbon, but that’s what happens!

My final touch was to add some Rhinestones along the Tulle Ribbon – the dots on the ribbon were right in the centre and spaced out beautifully – I couldn’t have planned it better. I’m pleased with how my card turned out. When I come back into my studio, I’ll probably be using a mixture of new and existing products, but definitely not Christmas products! This year the build-up to Christmas seems to have been a lot shorter than normal – does it to you?

All my catalogues were posted out yesterday, so if you’re a customer of mine, you should receive them today or Friday. If you live in the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, or Austria and don’t have a demonstrator, and would like to receive a copy of the new Mini (formerly Spring/Summer) Catalogue and the Sale-a-bration Brochure, please send me an email and I’ll be pleased to pop them in the post for you. Please let me know which language you’d like: English, French, German – I have all three.

I’ll be back in two days (that is, Friday, 27th December). In the meantime, I wish you all a very blessed Christmas and a healthy, happy New Year. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support. I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know; without it, there wouldn’t be any point in me doing my cards or my blog! From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU.♥

God bless you and I look forward to being back on Friday.

JanB. xx

Products used for this project: please click on any of the links to be taken to my 24/7 online Stampin’ Up! shop. The Hostess Code for December 2019 is RVWA74X3. Thank you. xx

Blueberry Bushel A4 Cardstock [146991] £8.25	Whisper White A4 Card Stock [106549] £9.00	Bells Are Ringing Bundle [153024] £35.00	Detailed Bells Dies [150656] £23.00	God’s Peace Cling Stamp Set (En) [150479] £21.00
Subtle Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [143706] £9.25	Embossing Buddy [103083] £5.50	Versamark Pad [102283] £8.75	Versamark Refill [102193] £5.50	White Stampin’ Emboss Powder [109132] £5.50
Whisper White 5/8″ (1.6 Cm) Polka Dot Tulle Ribbon [146912] £7.00	Rhinestone Basic Jewels [144220] £4.75	Take Your Pick [144107] £9.00	Paper Snips [103579] £9.25	Grid Paper [130148] £11.75
Silicone Craft Sheet [127853] £5.50	Multipurpose Liquid Glue [154974] £3.75	Stampin’ Dimensionals [104430] £3.75	Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals [144108] £3.75