Believe…

Good morning, friends! I’m a little astonished to type that it’s only FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

YIKES.

I’m sorry the blog has been pretty silent the last few weeks. I’ve been so busy with seasonal activities, plus our kiddos have been sick off and on for the past month, so that’s been so fun to deal with. I have managed to make some more Christmas cards, and my project this weekend has been creating sentiment panels for the interior (WHY I don’t do that as I make them is beyond my comprehension, but I have 50+ cards with no sentiments lol!), then signing, addressing, and stuffing the envelopes. I will have a few cards to share with you before Christmas, as long as everyone cooperates with their naptimes lol!

This first card uses one of the cutest installments from Papertrey Ink’s Petite Places line: Holiday Lane. I absolutely adore this little gingerbread house/Santa’s workshop scene, and I couldn’t wait to make a card with it. I started by stamping the building and a few of the trees approximately where I wanted them, then covering them with Molotow masking fluid. I then did some ink blending with Hero Arts Navy dye ink, concentrating the darkest color towards the edges of the panel, then blending more lightly towards the house. To create the stars, I used the Memory Box Stars Shimmer stencil with pearlescent embossing paste, taking care to put the stars only in the sky and not on the house or trees. 

I was a little frustrated when I peeled back the masking fluid, because it mottled some of my (very tiny and detailed) stamping on the house. I die cut a house and restamped everything, then popped it up over the original stamped house. Not what I was initially going for, but I was making lemonade. I die cut a few snowdrifts from white glitter paper, then assembled them on the bottom of the card base. I then die cut the Santa sleigh from white cardstock, stamped the image in black, then used my blender tool to add the blue around the edges, which I then covered in clear Wink of Stella. (I hate when those white edges of the die cuts distract from the rest of the card!) Tip: to blend on a tiny die cut, put the die cut back in the negative space of card stock from which it was cut, then do your blending; it helps to hold it in place. I added a Heidi Swapp “believe,” cut from red foil card stock, to the bottom of the card. The final touch was to add some “snow” using my snow pen around the base of the house and trees to try to make the whole scene flow a little more naturally. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this card! I will be back later this week with another card. On Christmas I will have my top ten favorite Christmas cards from the year, so stay tuned for that!! Merry Christmas!!