Rudolph Days - March 2019

Despite Mr Mojo taking a hike here, I was determined to join in with ScrappyMo's Rudolph Days challenge which runs until the end of this month.

Whilst laid up in bed, I did manage to find time to keep a little eye on a couple of Facebook 'de-cluttering' groups and snapped up some bargains. To be honest, this place is bursting at the seams but I did only buy items I'd use a lot and/or had wanted for some time. And all items were unused as well! The SU set of stamps and really complementary dies I used for this Christmas card were on my wish list:

I used:

- 5.5 x 4.25" white card blanks, I made four cards the same and three are tent style and somehow I managed to make one with a side opening, which I do quite like as a format. I buy 6" x 6" white cards from Hobbycraft and trim them down to size - and also trim the envelopes to use as notepaper in the craft room so not as wasteful as it may sound

- 5.25" x 4" red satin card (from Joanna Sheen) - which always looks so rich and is top of my list for Christmas card stock

- 5" x 3.75" white card for the front panel

- used the SU set of dies called 'Hometown Greetings' to die cut the house and tree and that gave me the size I needed for the aperture I was going to die cut next

- used two circle dies, one inside the other, to cut out the circle from the white card. The inner die was a Tonic Studios plain one and the outer one was from the 'Stitched Circles' set by The Works. That left a circular aperture as well as giving me a stitched white ring to use later on in the making of this card

- at that point I could stamp the sentiment, so I used SU 'Smoky Slate' and a sentiment stamp from the SU 'Hearts Come Home' set of stamps

- then ran the white panel through the Cuttlebug with SU's 'Softly Falling' embossing folder - I love this folder and made sure I used it so that the wider spaced 'dots' were at the bottom of the panel so they didn't interfere with the sentiment too much

- the next thing was to assemble the little 'photo frame' by using a tape runner to add the die cut as I wanted it to the back of the frame and then carefully snip away any excess from just under the frame

- rummaged round in my ribbon boxes and found a snippet of narrow silver lurex ribbon and wrapped a piece around the top of the aperture

- glued the red layer onto the card, topped by the white layer

- added the circle frame (which I guess is really rather like a bauble/tree ornament) using teeny snippets of thin sticky pads

- then tied a teensy weensy bow using the same silver lurex ribbon and stuck that in place using Glossy Accents as a strong glue

- final touch was to use the SU 'Owl Builder' punch to punch out a tiny little heart  - from a snippet of the red satin card and glued it in place, again using Glossy Accents purely as it was already open on my desk

I got this idea from another blog and am so grateful to Dawn Griffith who is a Stampin' Up Demo lady, she made it all so easy - easy enough for me to make four the same as I was at it! Her blog post is HERE as well as a link to a video Dawn made. Dawn did use a length of narrow ribbon along the lower part of her card but to be honest, not only was I short of the silver ribbon, but I thought the card was fine without it.

She also changed the coloured layer for dark blue and also soft baby blue on other cards using the same design - all of which look lovely! Thanks Dawn!