Twinkling Paper Studio: Keeping Christmas

Happy New Year!! A New Year is sometimes about making promises and commitments to yourself to make changes. This first Keeping Christmas Blog Hop is in honor of that. I am honored to join all of my team members from "The Challenge" as we move to this new format of a monthly inspirational blog hop called "Keeping Christmas" which is the brainchild of Kelly Lunceford and Lesley Croghan! We will be sharing Christmas creations with tips and tricks on the 25th of each month. The idea behind this is to create a few Christmas Cards each month so we don't have to panic to get all of our cards made for December 2018. Kelly Lunceford will be hosting this monthly hop.

Kelly Lunceford

Vicki Finger (You are Here)

For the cards I created today, I started with a 4.25 x 5.5 inch panel of Gina K Designs Layering Weight White Cardstock and my MISTI Stamping Tool. You could use any kind of stamp positioning tool that you might have. Because I wanted to create Multiples, I did 4 but I could have done 8 or 12 just as easily with a pretty minimal addition of time. I wanted to use the Altenew Majestic Mistletoe Stamp Set so I grabbed the first layer. This particular set builds an image rather than layering the same image with coordinating colors to add depth. For the cards I made here, I used 4 layers and the layering guide included in the packaging. For the first layer, I used Papertrey's New Leaf Ink to quickly stamp the four panels. Next I used Gina K Fresh Asparagus Ink for the second layer and Papertrey Pinefeather Ink for the 3rd layer of the greenery. For the berry layer, I knew I wanted to use some Nuvo Drops to get that added dimension of the berries, but I wanted to make sure I got them in just the right places so I stamped the berries using Papertrey's Soft Stone Ink (a very light grey shade) just to use as a guideline for placing the Nuvo Drops. There is a 5th layer that stamps the little stem on the berries, but I planned to use Nuvo Drops for that bit of dimension as well.

Once the greenery was stamped, I treated all of the panels with my powder tool to get ready for the heat embossing. Using Versamark Ink, I stamped my sentiment and heat embossed it with Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder. Once I completed that, I die cut each panel with the largest Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die. It's important to die cut the panel before you add any Nuvo Drops because they will flatten when going through your die cutting machine. (Yes, I can tell you this from personal experience.) Then using the largest die from WPLUS9's Gift Card Layers Dies I cut four panels of Gina K Designs Metallic Gold Cardstock. This is a thick, heavyweight cardstock that is metallic but not shiny like foil or mirror cardstock is and is a pretty perfect match to Simon's Antique Gold Embossing Powder. I adhered the front panels to the background panels using Kokuyo Dot Runner Adhesive.

Next I created 4 horizontal card bases from Gina K Designs Heavy Base Weight White Cardstock. This is the silkiest most luxurious card stock that I've ever used and I have tried a lot of them. I adhered the card fronts to the card bases and then applied Nuvo Crystal Drops in Ivory Seashell in all the little areas indicated by the Soft Stone Ink.

I set those aside to dry for a few hours and then went back and added a tiny little touch for the stems using Nuvo Glitter Drops in Golden Sunset. Be sure to let your cards sit overnight before putting them with envelopes or popping them into the mail to ensure that the drops are completely dry so they will stay dimensional.

The supplies I've used are linked below for your convenience (Affiliate Links may be used).

Altenew Majestic Mistletoe Stamp Set Shop at: SSS \| ALT	Cuttlebug Shop at: SSS	GKD Fresh Asparagus Ink Shop at: SSS \| GKD	GKD Gold Metallic Cardstock Shop at: GKD
GKD Heavy Base Weight White Cardstock Shop at: GKD	GKD Layering Weight White Cardstock Shop at: GKD	Kokuyo Long Dot Runner Adhesive Shop at: SSS	MISTI Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS \| GKD
Nuvo Crystal Drops Ivory Seashell Shop at: SSS	Nuvo Glitter Drops Golden Sunset Shop at: SSS	PTI Perfect Match New Leaf Ink Shop at: PTI	PTI Perfect Match Pinefeather Ink Shop at: PTI
SSS Stitched Rectangles Dies Shop at: SSS	Teflon Bone Folder Shop at: SSS	Versamark Ink Shop at: PTI \| SSS	Wagner Heat Tool Shop at: SSS
WPLUS9 Gift Card Layers Designer Dies Shop at: SSS