Hi there! My friends over at Colorado Craft Company have a beautiful new Christmas In July release filled with gorgeous holiday stamp sets, and I have a project to share with you using a couple of the new goodies, just in time for the Free Shipping Days promotion! This holiday card features a “holiday ombré” with lots of ink blending and gold embossed images, so let’s get started on all of the details!

The elegant filigree details on the Big and Bold~ Joy Ornaments set totally sold me on this set. It’s super simple to create an impactful card using just these gorgeous images! I heat embossed them on a white slimline card base using gold detail embossing powder, making sure to stagger the heights to make them look a little more “natural” and not as staged.

Next, I paid homage to the new Hero Arts Core Inks, blending not my usual three, but seven inks down the front of my embossed card base to create a “holiday ombré” background. I started with Crimson, Pale Tomato, Peony, Spicy Mustard, and Soft Olive, then lightly blending a touch of Cranberry at the top and a touch of Pine at the bottom. If I had my druthers, I would have left out the Spicy Mustard, but I could not bring myself to go from Peony to Soft Olive without some sort of yellow bridge between them. C’est la vie, right? I splattered some sparkly gold watercolor on the card base, then set it aside to dry while I worked on the sentiment.

I didn’t want to add a clunky sentiment that covered up the pretty filigree ornaments, so I heat embossed one of the lovely, poignant sentiments from Savvy Sentiments~ Holiday Quick Cards Small on some heavyweight vellum. Using vellum helps to give the sentiment a kind of ethereal effect, much lighter than using regular cardstock. I used some clear dimensional adhesive to pop the sentiment up on the blended card front. The final touch was one last golden element: some gold pearls. I adore metallics all year round, but it seems almost necessary to add lots of shiny metallic accents to holiday cards, don’t you think?
To celebrate the Free Shipping days, Colorado Craft Company is hosting a giveaway on each participating blog! Simply leave a comment on this post, then the folks at Colorado Craft Company will announce the winners on their blog. Be sure to check the blog after July 20 to see if you’re one of the winners!
If you’d like to do some shopping from the new release, you’ll receive free shipping 7/19-7/20! You can check out the new release at the top of the page HERE.
There are lots of other designers sharing inspiration, so be sure to check out their posts! The more comments you leave on the different posts, the more chances you have to win! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!
