A Thrill of Hope

I have a card today for the AAA Card Challenge #79 with a theme of Christmas. For those of you who may not know it, CAS means Clean & Simple.  All of the AAA Card Challenges are for CAS cards.  I'll also be linking this up over at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge with their theme of  "Anything Goes".

Yesterday I was finishing up the last of my Christmas Cards (I think), I still had quite a pile of "parts & pieces" left so I pulled a few things from the pile and made a couple more cards.  This particular card is for the pastor and his family who live across the street from us.

I had previously done a bit of soft ink blending on the tags from the WPLUS9 Love Showers Die Set.  Those were cut out of Canson 140# Watercolor Paper which takes ink blending very well. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's A Thrill of Hope Stamp Set and was stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with Ranger Gold Tinsel Embossing Powder. After that the tag was spritzed with Tsukineko Sheer Sparkle Shimmer Spritz.

For the mat, I did a lot of gold splatter using Sargent Art Gold Watercolor on Scarlet Jewel Cardstock and set it aside to dry while I figured out the rest of my design. This design is so clean and simple that it really needed a touch of something.  Going back to my pile of parts and pieces, I grabbed some of the Spellbinders Jolly Holly leaves, (which had also been cut out from splattered paper) and added them to my card.  A few Satin Red Sequins made up the berries on the holly. I die cut the mat using the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die and assembled the card using ATG with Ranger Multi Medium Matte for the sequins and holly.

I really like how this turned out.  Although you can't see the ink blending very well in this photo, it looks beautiful in real life.  I wanted the card to be about the sentiment more than the decor.  It is the reason for the season after all.  This was quick and simple to do but still makes an impact.

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I have lots of projects on my desk right now so I hope you'll stop by again soon.  I have a new project 3 - 5 times each week.