One of my downline sent me this Star of Light Christmas Card, and I want to tell you it is an absolutely beautiful card!  Just stunning in real life!  The photograph doesn’t really do it justice because of the glare from the gold foil. The Star of Light Stamp Set is a perfect one for the Christmas season, not only with beautiful artwork but lots of sentiments to use.

The card starts on just a Whisper White base, layered with a piece of Gold Foil. The top layer is Night of Navy embossed with the Sparkle Embossing Folder.  Underneath this Night of Navy layer are strips of Silver Glimmer Paper on each side, very narrow margins. It just looks beautiful along with the Gold Foil and Night of Navy cardstock!  The Star of Wonder is made with the Starlight Thinlits Dies using the Gold Foil and the Silver Glimmer Paper in all the layers.

The greeting is embossed in gold and layered on Gold Foil with a bit of the Gold 1/8″ Ribbon folded behind. There is also a small Rhinestone Jewel on the front.

For texture, shine, and eye-catching beauty, this card really can’t be beat! All the elements are there from the embossing folder, the Gold Foil and Silver Glimmer Paper and the beautiful die-cutting and layering of the star with the Starlight Thinlits Dies. Really pretty!

You will find this Star of Light Photopolymer Stamp Set and Starlight Thinlits Dies in the  Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog on page 122, so it can be ordered any time.  Perhaps you will want to get a head start on NEXT Christmas by making this card in January! This Star of Light Christmas card is one that will turn out beautifully!

In keeping with my Christmas trees theme of yesterday, I got the idea to die cut Christmas trees with the Foil Frenzy Specialty Designer Series Paper to make a Christmas card. Using this colorful paper with foil colors and patterns makes for a more whimsical card! The foil patterns are printed on heavyweight kraft paper so besides cards, this paper is good for making boxes and other 3D projects for any occasion, not just Christmas! Check out the Foil Frenzy Paper!

One of the coordinating colors of the foil is Berry Burst, one of the In Colors, so I used that color for my card base.  The card layer is, again, Shimmery White. After I die cut the three Christmas trees with the tree in the Santa’s Sleigh Thinlits Dies, I decided to slide them all over to the right and add a bow to the side. The card is wrapped with the Berry Burst Ribbon, and I also added a piece of the 1/8″ Gold Ribbon for an added accent. The bow is a “cheater bow” – I adhered the strip of ribbon around the card layer but then tied the bow separately and adhered it to the ribbon with several Glue Dots. Makes it a little easier to just attach the bow rather than to tie it actually on the card!

The greeting is one from Oh What Fun and I simply stamped the whole thing with Berry Burst ink.  Another thing you can do with markers is to color right on the stamp, coloring different areas different colors.  After the coloring and before stamping, be sure to “huff” or breathe on the stamp to remoisten the ink, then stamp!  This will give a slightly lighter inked image than if you inked up with an ink pad directly, but it is a good technique to use sometimes.

Even when you start with an idea of what you are going to stamp, often another idea comes to mind while you are creating.  Just go with it and see what happens! If it doesn’t work, just keep working on it and you probably will find just the right combination of what looks good for your project!

Be sure to check out my card from yesterday in THIS POST to see the more typical way to use the Santa’s Sleigh tree die – or is there really a typical way to use any of our products?!  It’s all about the creativity!

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Can you tell the difference in these two Santa’s Sleigh Christmas Tree Christmas Cards?  I found this sample in a magazine we Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators receive from Stampin’ Up! quarterly, in an issue from last year, when the Santa’s Sleigh Stamp Set was new.  The sample was made pretty much like my card on the left. When I looked at it closely and looked at the list of supplies to make it, I was surprised that it wasn’t actually made like my card on the right!

The original sample, the card on the left, is actually made with some brown colors rather that metallics like my card on the right. In the sample, one tree is die cut with the Santa’s Sleigh Dies Thinlits out of Soft Suede Cardstock and the other tree out of Crumb Cake Cardstock. The center tree is stamped with Soft Suede Ink and die cut.  The card base and layer are made from the beautiful Shimmery White Cardstock. The center tree is made with this cardstock as well.  There are also some Soft Suede stamped stars and some die cut stars.

Since I originally thought the sample was made with metallics, I made another card with the Shimmery White cardstock.  The center tree is stamped with Versamark Ink and embossed with Gold Emboss Powder using the Heat Tool. The other two trees are die cut from the Gold Foil Sheets and the Copper Foil Sheet.

The center tree on both cards are popped up with both Stampin’ Dimensionals and the new Mini Stampin’ Dimensionals. In some cases, even the Mini Dimensionals are too large. If this is the case you can cut along the edges of the dimensional sheet as necessary.

To finish off the card, Linen Thread is wrapped around the card layer. On the metallic card, I tried some other ribbons, but mostly they were too large since the trees take up a lot of space. The greeting is stamped, in both cases, with Soft Suede Ink, although it could also be embossed in gold. In the original sample, the linen thread goes entirely over all the trees (not tucked under the center tree) and the greeting as well was adhered up by the trees and tucked under the linen thread. I chose to just put the greeting at the bottom of the card.

Both of these styles of Christmas cards are very pretty!  I would say using the embossing and foil steps it up a bit. I’m even going to try some other designer paper.  I think you could do many variations with this card!  Just get started and then see where your creativity takes you!  You can copy these samples of the Santa’s Sleigh Christmas Tree Christmas Card and see what you come up with!

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