The Card Concept {Retro Holiday}

Hello everyone and welcome to a new challenge at The Card Concept.  This challenge we have a theme of Retro Holiday.  I had the hardest time deciding which way to go with this challenge but I finally settled on Retro looking ornaments and used the Vintage Ornaments II Collection of stamps and dies designed by Dawn McVey for Papertrey Ink.

There are no special techniques or anything here.  I used a piece of green shimmer cardstock leftover from a wedding album I did several years ago for the background panel. I prepared my surface for heat embossing by using a powder tool on it then stamped the ornament outlines onto watercolor paper using Versamark with Antique Gold Embossing Powder. Once I heat set them, I stamped the interior pieces with Hibiscus Burst Ink and Tropical Teal Ink and misted it just a bit with water before stamping it into place. For the highlights I used Summer Sunrise Ink. This just allows the edges to soften a bit to get a better blend of color.  Each of the different parts of the ornament is a different stamp so you can use a variety of colors or just a couple of colors. 

I die cut some gold foiled cardstock using the Tim Holtz Holiday Greens Dies as my tree branches.  I stamped a coordinating "Merry Christmas" Sentiment from the Beautiful Berries: Winter Stamp Set in the same gold embossing powder onto Aqua Mist Cardstock and attached that with some 3D Foam Tape.

This was really simple to create.  I have the original version of Vintage Ornaments from Papertrey and I'm thinking I better get that set out and create some of those as well.  If you have time, create the ornaments ahead of time. They don't have to be heat embossed, I just enjoy doing that. You can make several so that if you need to pull a card together quickly, you can. When I'm working with a specific set, I always make a few extras because until I lay the design out on my card front, I'm not sure how many I might want.  This is also good to do in case you mess one up which I have been known to do from time to time.  Any extras that I don't use, I just tuck into the stamp pocket with the stamp set.  

Be sure to stop over at The Card Concept Challenge Blog to see all of the projects from the Design Team Members.  There are some fantastic cards from my teammates.