Gleaming Tag Buffet Christmas Card

Hello, Crafters.

Fortunately, I’m not superstitious – superstitions only work if you’re superstitious! Yesterday, hubby was taking something down to the post office in the town. When he does this he drives halfway and walks the rest. His car decided it wasn’t going anywhere! We had left the satnav plugged when we arrived home from a short trip out last Sunday and it had drained the battery. My satnav switches off when my car is switched off, but that’s not the case with his! After dinner yesterday evening the dishwasher decided not to work and hubby phoned to get an engineer and was told the machine is too old to be serviced. I don’t know how old the machine is but at a guess I’d say about ten years and definitely less than sixteen! The new machine will be arriving on Saturday!

To create today’s card I used the stamp set called Tag Buffet which was designed to go with the Tag Buffet Project Kit although I didn’t buy the kit! I wasn’t sure which direction I was going in with today’s card so I started by using my Stamparatus to stamp the stocking image on a piece of Whisper White Cardstock (CS) using Tuxedo Black Memento Ink. To colour the stocking I used Dark Real Red and Light Old Olive Stampin’ Blends.

The idea that was forming in my mind’s eye included using some Designer Series Paper (DSP). If I decided to go down this route, I knew I’d use a patterned design probably from Heartwarming Hugs DSP because every design is a small all-over pattern. The colours of the DSP include Real Red and Pear Pizzazz, which is like a pale Old Olive. My next idea was to have the stocking hanging from the holly and berries image which is in the Christmas Gleaming Stamp Set. I set to stamping, colouring and fussy cutting the holly and berries image, and I also fussy cut the stocking.

When I tried hanging the stocking from the holly and berries it didn’t look right, in fact, it looked plain wrong! Next, I decided to “frame” the stocking on an oval of DSP. Instead of layering it on a larger oval, I decided to layer it on a Stitched Rectangle die-cut I found in my Old Olive scraps folder. Now my design was taking shape and I wanted to put the framed stocking onto a layer of Whisper White CS but it needed to be embossed.

I used the Winter Snow Embossing Folder which looked fabulous. I adhered the framed stocking using Dimensionals and then added the Whisper White CS layer to an Old Olive CS layer and finally to a Whisper White CS cardbase. I chose a sentiment which was ready-stamped inside the Itty Bitty Christmas Stamp Set and adhered it just below the stocking. Next I added the holly image and painted both this and the the stocking image using my Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Pen. Finally I added some gemstones left over from the Spring catalogue – From My Heart Faceted Gems (retired but still very pretty!).

Inside my card I added a layer of Old Olive CS and a top layer of Whisper White CS. After stamping the holly image in the bottom right-hand corner I coloured it in the same way I coloured the one on the front of my card. Finally I painted the image using my Clear Wink of Glitter Pen, all of which have shown up beautifully in my photographs today! That’s it from me today. I look forward to being back with you tomorrow, and in the meantime, please take care and stay safe. Happy crafting.

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 OCTOBER 2020 is 3E2YYKZV. Thank you. xx