Hello and welcome to day 4 of our Winter Sneak Peek Week! All this week I am sharing cards using our new collection for the holidays shipping on Friday, September 27th.
Today's sneak peeks include a really fun new layered poinsettia die, a new A2 sized standalone die, 2 new 6x6 embossing folders and a stunning 4x6 sentiment stamp set. Let's dig right in!
Card No. 1: For my first card of the day I am using the new Layered Poinsettia dies to create a beautiful holiday card. Each poinsettia has 5 individual petal/ leaf layers (not including the veining or center) so these can be made to look super dimensional. It's worth noting that all those layers can take a bit of time to put together (for example these two flowers here took me about an hour to cut out and adhere together), but all your hard work is rewarded with some seriously gorgeous finished blooms.
Each poinsettia package comes with a layering guide to help you get everything lined up just right, but Sandy Alnock also shared a stunning card on her blog HERE showing another great way to use them without having to line them up which would be perfect for mass producing.
For my card I started by cutting a 3.75" square from my front card panel and then inked up my card front beneath using some Worn Lipstick distress ink going lighter towards the center to give my sentiment a glowing appearance. I then stamped my sentiment in the center using a phrase from our new Season's Greetings stamps. Can I just say I'm smitten?! These sentiments are such a pretty script and I adore their large size. You almost don't need to do much more than stamp a sentiment, right?
The set comes with some extra sprigs and berries which I double stamped with a second ink color just along the edges for some variation and shading. I then cut them with the dies and layered them beneath each poinsettia. The Iridescent bubbles look so cool for the flower centers and give my card an extra dose of elegance.
Card No. 2: For my next card, I only used four of the five petal layers for our Layered Poinsettia dies to save some time and I also skipped the dies for the petal veins, this time pulling out some Copic markers in complimentary colors and just flicking on some quick veins. I mass produced 50 of these flowers for some store displays and while they still took a decent amount of time, they went a bit quicker than my first example. I once again dressed up the centers with some green pearls from our rainbow pearls mix.
For my background, I inked up the raised portions of our new Buffalo Plaid embossing folder with some VersaFine Onyx Black ink using a brayer. This gives an even application of the ink to the surface, while avoiding adding ink to the bottom layers (you just have to be careful to avoid sticking your fingers in it. I then gently laid a piece of red cardstock on the clean side of my folder and carefully closed the folder, making sure to hold it tight so it couldn't shift before running it through my die-cutting machine. I then set it out to fully dry while I worked on cutting out my sentiment.
This "Merry Christmas" phrase comes with our new Christmas Garland Frame die and is another great way to make a big splash on your holiday cards. I cut mine from white cardstock to help it pop against the busy pattern below and then continued the rustic, woodsy feel by cutting an oval window from some wood print paper (from our Amazing Argyle paper Pack) using our Stitched Ovals dies.
Card No. 3: Up next is a card focusing all the sprigs and berries from our Season's Greetings Stamps. I turned to Gina K's Wreath Builder Template to repeatedly stamp the tree bough twigs to form my wreath. These templates are super fun to play with and like a kaleidoscope, you can create so many variations by simply moving the stamp pieces a little bit here or there (I created a fuller wreath with more variations in ink colors that I really loved, but when I was done I accidentally used a circle die to cut it out that was too small and I had to toss it--I cried a little inside). Anyway, after that happened I decided I should make the best with what I stamped here on my first attempt.
This version had some extra space in the center which was feeling like an empty void so I filled it with the word "Christmas" from our Season's Greetings Stamps. Using the original merry word that came with it was just too large for the space so I fussy cut the word Christmas out and paired it with a smaller "merry" word from our Merry Sentiments stamps. I had some extra berries I had stamped from my first card which I used to dress up my wreath, adding some glossy accents over the top for extra shine. I then framed my wreath using a stitched scalloped circle from our Fancy Frames Circle Dies and mounted them onto a diamond print from our new Subtle Grey Tones 6x6 Paper pack. The finished size of this card measures 5" square.
Card No. 4: For this card I really wanted to showcase our new Christmas Garland Frame dies. To make my garland look fuller I employed Jennifer McGuire's trick for mirroring die-cuts (shared HERE), cutting a second set from a complimentary color of cardstock and layering them behind the original.
For my background, I inked up my card base with some tumbled glass distress ink along the edges, fading to white in the center and then stamped my sentiment using the Season's Greetings Stamps. The Christmas Garland dies come with some dimensional berries which you can layer together from three colors of cardstock which look great with our Layered Poinsettia dies. It's hard to see the layers in the photo due to my use of the glossy accents over the top, but they look really cool in person! For this version of my poinsettia I thought I would try to die-cut the veins from the individual leaf petals before layering them together. While it's a fun look, it's also the most time consuming option I tried.
So what's that thin border around the edge you might be wondering? Well, my card base was cut a bit too large and was showing though to the front of my card so I thought I would use my trimmer to trim it down after the fact, but my blade caught on the edge of the frame and tore the edge of my finished card (another moment near tears) so I decided to salvage it by cutting some thin strips of cardstock to match and layer over the boo-boo. Now rather than being something my eye goes to every time I see it, it looks like something that is a design element with the border on all four sides. :)
Card No. 5: Up next is a card that is pretty similar to the last one, but this time I wanted to go for a more woodsy, rustic feel using our new Woodgrain Embossing Folder together with our Christmas Garland Frame dies.
I embossed a heavy weight piece of Neenah Desert Storm cardstock (similar to kraft paper in color) and then colored over the surface using a Vintage Photo Distress Crayon which I rubbed into the surface with my finger to really show off the texture of my embossed paper. I then cut the "Merry Christmas" phrase from red cardstock twice and used a glue pen to stack them together for some extra dimension. For my two pine cones I used our Christmas Trimmings stamps and then fussy cut the images with my scissors, popping them up with some foam tape.
Card No. 6: For this card I went soft and pretty using the exact same Woodgrain Embossing Folder and Christmas Garland Frame dies. I started by embossing a heavy 110 lb. piece of white cardstock which I then inked up with some Spun Sugar Distress Oxide ink. This time I cut a single garland frame from white cardstock to place over the top.
I cut three jingle bells from metallic shimmer cardstock using our Silver Bells dies which I layered over a 1" circle punched from charcoal cardstock (or if you don't have the right color, you use white cardstock and create the color you need with some markers). I wanted a sentiment to match my bells so I heat embossed my Christmas phrase using our Season's Greetings Stamps with silver embossing powder onto vellum. Then I had the dilemma of how I was going to adhere it without showing any adhesive (since my Spray Mount had gone bad). The scalloped edge our largest Fancy Frames Rectangle dies came to my rescue! It hid my adhesive and dressed up my card at the same time.
Card No. 7: I went clean and simple for my final card of the day using our Snowflake Circle Frame die together with our Layered Poinsettia die. I stamped my "Happy New Year" sentiment using our Season's Greetings Stamps onto a fun tone-on-tone print from our new Subtle Grey Tones Paper pack and used a little strip of green from our Very Merry Paper pack...
Before I go, I have a little note worth mentioning about cutting intricate dies... A metal shim like this one HERE placed between your platform and your bottom cutting plate will become your new best friend and make life sooo much easier. It just gives your cutting sandwich the extra pressure it needs to cut them out with a lot less stress.
Well that wraps up today's sneak peeks. Thank you so much for joining me. I've really appreciated all of you who have taken the time to leave a sweet comment here or on social media this week. Your kind feedback is what keeps me going and inspires me to put in the long hours to keep this little company running.
In case you missed it, make sure to check out our Birthday blog hop post HERE for a chance to win one of eighteen $25 Gift codes to our online store, along with some amazing Christmas card inspiration from our designer. Plus I share a few more details about our Holiday release promos shared below. :)
Here's a closer look at the new items used today (available now as a pre-order HERE and shipping out on Friday, September 27th).
Other Supplies Used:
