Hark, The Herald Angels Sing ...

This is one of my cards for the upcoming Close To My Heart convention card swap with other consultants. 



Instructor Notes:

This would be a great card to make at a workshop for people to stretch their technical stamping experience at a budget price – only two colours of cardstock and one ink required, with minimal embellishments, yet still with a professional result. 

It is also mostly a flat card apart from the 3D foam, so will only incur the minimal postage.  When you have volumes of cards to post at Christmas, I think this is quite important!

Techniques Learned:  direct to paper, masking  

Supplies:

All Close to My Heart  - Hostess Set “Sing Glory”

New England Ivy ink

Gold Shimmer Tape

Gold self adhesive sequins

White card blank 6 x 4

White Daisy cardstock

New England Ivy cardstock

Other - Small Post It notes

A piece of waste paper

3D foam pads

 Instructions:

 

1.      Cut a card mat 3 3/4 x 5 ½ inches to fit neatly on your card blank. Edge round with your New England Ivy ink pad.

2.      Put your card mat on a waste piece of paper with the stamp set wadding underneath, and your craft mat under that – this way you still get a good stamped image without stamping on your craft mat and you can throw the waste paper away afterwards. 

3.      Take the ivy stamp and starting off the edge, stamp in one direction across the top of the card mat.  For the next row, stamp in the other direction.  You will notice that the stamp does not have a straight edge, so small gaps will appear in your stamping. 

4.      Keep repeating until most of the card mat has been covered.  For any gaps, “mask” off the areas where you have stamped with the small Post It notes, ensuring that there is just white space underneath.  Cover all the areas.  This is a bit time consuming, but worth the effort for the result!

5.      Stamp the message onto a piece of white cardstock, and cut into a rectangle 2 ¾ inches long x 2 inches wide.

6.      Cut a rectangle from white cardstock 2 ¼ inches wide x 2 ¾ inches long for the message mat.  I used the inking “direct to paper” technique whereby I rubbed an ink pad onto white cardstock with New England Ivy with approx ½ inch ink showing each side, then dried off with a heat gun.  This is a great technique for workshop participants if they want a match but don’t have the exact cardstock, but it is probably more economical for workshops to cut the mat from matching New England Ivy cardstock as the contrast. 

7.      Adhere the white message mat to the New England Ivy mat with 3D foam pads. 

8.      Cut two strips of Gold Shimmer tape 3 ¼ inches long and cut triangles into the edges like banners. 

9.      Add your adhesive to the back of the New England Ivy message mat and then take the adhesive off the Gold Shimmer tape strips, making sure that everything is straight.  Then stick onto the card. 

10.  Add three gold sequins in various sizes to the message mat, making sure that they are in the visual triangle. 

11.  Stand back and admire the finished product!