Stamped and cut window greeting meets House of Cards and Vintage Stamping challenges....

hello all and happy Friday.

Uhm  today found me puzzling over what to do for a 'nice and easy'  Christmas card. ..
and, as is often the way with these things,  what you start out wanting to do, ideas and all - usually morphs into something entirely different by the time you have finished - and such was the story here.

...so rather than the one layer card I thought I had in mind - which is still buried in there somewhere I think .. I not only ended up with a raised layer card - what would we do without Stampin' Up's Dimensionals!  - but it had punched/cut-out windows as well, inspired by the November challenge over at House of Cards.

There is a brilliant video tutorial from Mynn, one of the lovely Design team,  to get you started and some lovely samples to inspire us all.

I came across this via a visit to the lovely Em Louise Fairley - aka 'Creative-Em'! a  member of their Group 2 Design Team. For those of you who prefer written instructions, she has some on her blog.

So, they want us to use a cut-out window - so I opted to do 3! using them for my baubles as well! 'Stringing'  these from a little stamped swag of Holly - from the embellished Ornaments stamp set - which I stamped in Mossy meadow but then coloured the berries in Real Red, easily accomplished courtesy of one of my aqua painters.

I die-cut the circles in my card using one of the small size dies in the Circles Framelits set. My insets came from scraps of the lovely music script paper - one of the beautiful designs in the Home for Christmas DSP pack- there really are some absolutely fabulous vintage inspired designs in this set and it is truly is my 'go to pack' of papers -  at the moment. I just love it.!

and with its vintagey feel (is that a real word?) am entering it for their Challenge no. 38#  Traditional Christmas over at 'Vintage Stamping Challenge'. 

The frame for the baubles was just a circle of Real red card stock cut with the 1 and 3/4" punch then I used the same die as I did for the baubles just to cut out the rest  to leave me the frame! I mounted this round the cut-outs then added a little hand drawn strings  and some toning ribbon for the bows,

My tiny poinsettias - are just fussy cut using the Petite petals punch and the  'pointsettia' paper - with  and little yellow and festive coloured candy dots and a bit of stamping/sponging to finish!

and the sentiment - another punched window for this as well - using the Decorative Label Punch - I hope you can see the slightly recessed impression this particular technique gives you a little better in this photo.?

well perhaps not quite so 'Nice and easy' as I originally intended - but then 'change does often happen' as am sure someone once said, somewhere!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used

Just click on the items below to easily access them in my on line store 

Very Vanilla A4 Cardstock	Embellished Ornaments Clear-Mount Stamp Set	Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad	Aqua Painters	Circles Collection Framelits Dies
Home For Christmas Designer Series Paper	1-3/4" Circle Punch	Real Red Stampin' Write Marker	Real Red A4 Cardstock	Petite Petals Punch
Home For Christmas Enamel Dots	Regals Candy Dots	Stamping Sponges	Decorative Label Punch	Real Red Classic Stampin' Pad

Or please just contact me if you have any questions or to place an order for you, if you would prefer.

well, Saturday again tomorrow and where these weeks are flying to is quite a mystery! Scary stuff that the 'C' word is literally only 49 sleeps away!

but another first for me this Sunday and something to look forward to - am off to cheer on some work colleagues in a local 'am dram' performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe - a first for watching a G&S operetta, not cheering on my colleagues, you understand!

til next time - happy crafting and will leave you with this thought

''Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep"

Scott Adams - he of the famous 'Dilbert'  and his boardroom antics, incidentally!

Jan x