Welcome to the October NC Stampin' Up! Demos Blog Hop where we are celebrating the holidays. We could choose any holidays we want but the challenge was to pick two different holidays. I chose Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you are following through the hop, you just came from Laurie Meier's. blog. Aren't her projects fantastic?
Edit: In looking through the other blogs, it looks like I interpreted the challenge differently than it was intended. I did not catch the line about showing how versatile our stamp sets are which meant I missed that I was supposed to use the same set for both projects. The ironic thing is, I like thinking outside the box and using our sets in ways they weren't originally intended so this was right up my alley. You've still got cards from 2 holidays, but I used different sets for them. Sorry! I hope you still enjoy them and find some inspiration.
We did/are doing this Thanksgiving card in my October Zoom class. I use both tenses because one class was yesterday and the other will be Tuesday. Those who were there yesterday really enjoyed all of the techniques we talked about while creating 3 projects using the Gather Together bundle.
To get colored rhinestones, I colored them with my dark Old Olive Blends marker. I leave them on the backing paper when I color them and don't move them to my project until they are completely dry.
I used a sponge dauber to rub gently over the leaves with Soft Suede ink. This brings out the embossed lines on the leaves and adds a little extra visual interest. When I do this technique on leaves I don't mind if I rub a little hard and some ink gets on the rest of the leaf. After all, real leaves are multi-colored when they change. However, with some embossing folders I am much more careful and light handed with this technique because I really don't want the ink on the inside parts.
To create the background I set my Woodland embossing folder on a flat surface and rubbed my Soft Suede ink pad all over the inside of the front panel. A few tips: 1) Hold the ink pad horizontal to the embossing folder as you rub so that none of the ink gets in the depressed parts - in this case the trees. 2) When I say ink goes on the inside of the front panel - the front is the piece that has the logo on it; inside I think is clear, but just in case, it's the part the will be inside when you fold it in half with the cardstock in it. 3) Once you lay the cardstock on the embossing folder be very careful that it does not move. If it does, you'll have smudges where you don't want them. The same goes when removing it after you've run it through your embossing machine. I usually open the folder and turn it upside down so the embossed piece gently drops onto my work surface.
In this next card, you can see what happens if you ink the other side of the embossing folder.
When dry embossing, the part that is depressed on the folder is what pushes up and will be the embossed image. Therefore, the directions I gave you will leave the trees uninked and the background colored with ink. If you want the trees colored with ink and the background to remain uninked bare cardstock, as in the above picture, then you would rub ink on the back inside part - the trees will feel raised and the background will be depressed. If you do it this way, your trees will be colored but they will be debossed (pushed into the cardstock) instead of embossed (raised).
This Christmas card is one of the three cards we will make at my upcoming Stamp-a-Stack featuring Winter Woods. The background was done with the Buffalo Check background stamp.
It's hard to see in this picture, but I added Wink of Stella all over the tree, especially on the snowy areas. The tree layer is flat on the Mossy Meadow cardstock and then I popped up the Mossy Meadow layer with Stampin' Dimensionals. The pennant sentiment is similar. The Very Vanilla piece is flat on the Mossy Meadow, but this time I only put Stampin' Dimensionals on one side so the part over the tree layer is flat against it and the other end is popped up from the Buffalo Check.
Thank you for stopping by my blog and for hopping through this month's NC SU Demos Blog Hop. Next up is Dawn Colby. Hurry on over to see the great projects she has for you.
