Festive wreath card

Sorting through my Christmas stamps the other week I came across a great little set of 'peg stamps' that I've had for a long, long while - and, with some free time, had a little play:

Firstly I followed a tip I found on The Crafty Elf's blog (have you signed up for her amazing Blog Candy offer of a Cuttlebug yet?). Her tip is to emboss a circle when you're making wreaths on cards. So, I flipped the card over and on the reverse just ran an embossing tool round a large round Nesties die so I had a template on the front to follow. You could use a can, glass, mug or whatever if you don't have circular dies - it saves having a faint pencil line, that Elf's a flipping genius!

Before using the peg stamps I stamped a few cedar branches round the embossed circle to give a background structure and then the fun began. One by one I used each of the seven peg stamps, just picking whatever ink pads I thought could work. It's also good not to re-ink the peg stamps for each time you use it - try to stamp a couple of images and that way you get a variation in density. When I was happy with the wreath I held my breath and stamped 'Merry Christmas' in the centre - thank goodness for an alignment thingy!

Finally, I added some touches of Glossy Accents and a sprinkling of glitter on the fruits. They remind me of those boxes of marzipan fruits that you can buy at Christmas with a little bit of sugar coating :)

I think the result is OK, bright and fresh - and very easy to do. I can see another little production line of these coming up here!

I used:

- 6" x 6" square white card stock

- Rubber Stampede 'Cedar' stamp

- Stamp Tapestry 'Fruit Wreath' peg stamp set

- Funstamps Small Merry Christmas' sentiment

- Anita's Clear Gloss

- un-named glitter in a big pot - this glitter isn't as fine as Glamour Dust but not as heavy as the likes of Twinklets

Another one for the Christmas card box, which is slowly looking fuller!

OK, so the fringe business. Sam, my hairdresser, didn't laugh too much - she was too excited about her news, a baby on the horizon :)) So, I got off the hook - phew!

Apologies that I spent almost all of yesterday running round and haven't done a proper hop around WOYWW comments and the blogs I follow at the very least. Off out again this afternoon to try and sort out my local crafty friend's internet problems. The cables are a dreadful tangle I know for sure so the two of us are likely to be on all fours underneath her desk trying to sort out Spaghetti Junction.............'I could be some time' as the famous saying goes.

Di
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