CAS Christmas Card Challenge - September

Its been a funny day today. It rained (with thunder and lightning) all night so everything was very soggy this morning but the sun was beaming so off to work I went. Unfortunately I had to finish early and pick up Max as he has the beginnings of hives on his legs and the itchiness was driving him crazy at school. So have covered his legs in steroid cream along with an antihistamine, so hopefully they will be better soon. This usually happens when he comes in contact with a virus, so I think he will probably get sick in the next day or two.....Now the sun is still out but its getting colder and trying to rain, so who knows what it will be like tomorrow!!

The joy of spending the weekend at my Mum's making lots of cards mean't I could join some new (to me) challenges. I saw the CAS Christmas Card Challenge on someone's blog and thought what a fab way to add to my very small Christmas card stash:

This is such a cool die that I picked up last year for $5 from The Warehouse. It has so much detail with all the bauble's that you don't need anything else on your card, which is perfect for a CAS challenge.

I started off by die-cutting the Couture Creations 'Bauble Wreath' from Strathmore Bristol Smooth CS and also twice more from white CS. I grabbed a rainbow of Distress Oxide inks and spent a bit of time watercolouring each bauble, not being too worried about getting it precisely in place. I used a heat gun to dry it out between layers and kept painting until I got the coverage I was happy with.

I really wanted it to be shiny, so I pressed my Versamark ink pad over the entire die-cut and heat embossed it with clear powder. It looked so good I decided to do it again, and again so it was mega shiny with dimension. All I had to do then was glue all the die-cut wreaths together and adhere to the card front.

For the sentiment (from Mama Elephant 'Puffy Holiday Greetings') I stamped it on white CS with my MISTI, using Mama Elephant 'Lollipop' pigment ink. I did it 3x to get good coverage and wetness so I could immediately heat emboss it with clear powder. I fussy cut it out and popped it on foam tape in the middle of the wreath. And to finish off I added some sequins from Neat and Tangled.

I'm also going to link this to the Simon Says Stamp - Wednesday Challenge where their theme is 'Bling it on'. If you could see the shine on this wreath, you would think it was covered in diamonds!!

 

Dave will be home from work soon, so I can then go and grab some groceries and take Bella for a walk. She's sitting here beside me watching to see if I'm about to get up, which to her means there's a chance she is going to a walk. She must be so disappointed when all I do is walk into the toilet.....

Take care
Shona