Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Merry & Bright--#tgifc243

The TGIF Challenges challenge this week is to create with our favorite products from the Holiday Catalog.  Tough challenge!  I have lots of favorites from the Holiday Catalog. However, as I wrote my Christmas cards this year, I saw lots of cardinals and "Christmas Greetings" from the Toile Christmas stamp set (#150469). So I pulled out that stamp set and coordinating die set, Christmas Cardinal dies  (#150640), and decided to make a card without a cardinal or wreath made with the leaf dies  and without the "Christmas Greetings" stamp.

Most of my Toile Tidings designer series paper (#150436) is gone, too. Instead, I used a fun technique for my background.  I saw this technique on a card created by one of the Stampin' Up! concept artists and featured in a video that came out shortly after the Holiday Catalog went live.  It took me three tries and a now sorry looking Brick & Mortar 3D embossing folder (#149643) to get the background right on the first card I made with this technique, but I think it was worth it.


To create the German Schmear look on the background, I dotted the inside of the Brick & Mortar 3D embossing folder with drops of Snowfall Accents Puff paint (#150691) before placing the Real Red card stock inside and running it through the die cutting machine.  Then I hit the card stock with the Heat Tool as soon as it came out of the embossing folder to bring out the puff paint.  The first card I made with this technique was with Crumb Cake card stock and it looked great, but I wanted something different this time around.  I tried it on Cherry Cobbler and it looked good but was just too dark for this card. Learn from my trial and errors:  Do not try and spread the puff paint around on the folder--it will turn out ugly.  Just dot the paint on and dot it on more of the surface of the embossing folder than you think you need--when I first tried to be conservative with my puff paint, I ended up with glaringly blank spaces around the edges. Don't try to fix anything once it's out of the folder.  Be happy with an imperfect look (I know I have a problem with this one myself!)



WARNING:  Either have a tub of warm soapy water next to your die cutting machine to immediately drop the embossing folder into or be resigned to a cruddy looking embossing folder.  That puff paint does not come off after it dries--I found that out the hard way.  It still works, though.  The puff paint sometimes leaks out onto your cutting platform and plate--so wash those quickly, too.

I arranged two of the berry branches over the background.  They were stamped in Soft Suede and colored with the Cherry Cobbler combo, Old Olive combo and Soft Suede combo Stampin' Blends, then die cut.  The greeting was stamped in VersaMark on Old Olive card stock and heat embossed with White Stampin' Emboss Powder. It was die cut and adhered to the card front with Stampin' Dimensionals.

You are going to see lots of great projects over on the TGIF Challenges Blog this week.  Everyone is working with their favorites!



Wishing you a very Merry & Bright Holiday Season!
--Sara Nell 

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