Snatched from the jaws of disaster

Oh good grief! I had some time to play on Saturday afternoon and decided to make a couple of Christmas cards using a die for the first time that came free with 'Die-cutting Essentials' magazine towards the end of last year. Note, the words 'for the first time' - and then also add 'and for the last time as well'. I set out to make two cards and ended up with only one that was in any way usable - purely by cobbling together the decent bits from all the disasters I encountered along the way.

Anyhow, this is the resulting card, which I'd like to enter into Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge (anything goes) as well as Craftyhazlenut's Christmas Challenge Extra for March (also anything goes):

I used:

- 4" x 5.75" pearlescent baby blue card blank, tent style

- piece of white pearlescent card stock, embossed using a Darice 'Snowflake Background' folder and trimmed to slightly smaller than the card front before being glued in place

- a Spellbinders Nestablities 'Scalloped Circle' die and a snippet of pearlescent baby blue card stock to form the backing for the scene

- and then the fun began!! I cut three die cuts, in white, baby blue and dark blue XCut glitter paper (six in fact as I intended to make two cards the same, sigh) and rapidly began to lose the will to live

- on the very first pass through the Cuttlebug, the die immediately bent just like a warm tuile biscuit draped over a rolling pin - and sniggered at me

- then it grimly hung onto every piece of that die cut card and I had to extract each and every teeny piece individually - somehow, in the intensity and throes of battle, I forgot about using wax paper!

- and so it went on, from bad to worse but eventually I managed to assemble one little scene on the scalloped circle I'd cut and set aside what seemed like a lifetime ago

- the sentiment behaved perfectly, it's dark blue glitter paper on top of baby blue pearlescent card and die cut using a Poppy Stamps 'Noel Snowflake' die

- final touches were just a few clear Papermania Shimmer dots here and there in the sky and also one in the centre of the snowflake dangling from the 'noel'

Never again! I think I aged about five years within a couple of hours, wrestling with teeny little sticky backed die cuts. Admittedly it's a really sweet little scene - but so not worth all the hassle. Even putting aside the fact that the die actually cuts badly and is now shaped like a tuile biscuit (and yes, I did run it through the Cuttlebug the other way up to try and flatten it!) it has a ridiculous number of little pieces to fiddle around with (have you seeeeen the fence for example?!)  And the fate of said die? Gone into the recycling bin - I never want to see it again!

Di
x