CAS Christmas

Do you find CAS cards hard to make? I sure do!

I made this card for the CAS Christmas Card Challenge, which closes on March 24. The theme this month is Holly and I immediately thought of my NBUS Recollections, Poinsettia and Holly stamp and die combo. It doe not have a name on the package, just the numbers 88146 2017-10   529319
I picked it up at Michaels with a 40% off coupon and stashed it in with my Christmas stamps and nearly forgot about it.

I think that is the beauty of themed challenges. It forces you to think about what stamps you already own to create the theme, and oftentimes you actually have to peruse your stamp hoard to find just the right one! Luckily, this stamp was on my mind as I had organized my Christmas stamps over the past few weeks.

With just a few hours left till the deadline,  I created this CAS Holly card.  The stamp set came with a great sentiment that used the phrase Holly Jolly, but that particular sentiment seemed way too small to use with the holly image.

I used my Misti and stamped off 4 cards. I managed to smear ink from my fingertips onto the first two and only managed to complete two cards. 

The holly was coloured with copics. As I have mentioned many times in the past, I am a hopeless colourist. Although I like the first card, I think I did a terrible job on the second. The leaves look too outlined and I did not have the right green to use with that dark outer edge. I may purchase a new green and see if I can touch it up, but for now it is considered finished!

The stamp sets comes with this sort of stripey line and series of dots stamp. I stamped in red ink on the first card with the lighter coloured holly and black and the second card. I may just batch bake another half dozen of this card so which colour do you like best?

A couple of dollar store sequins and finally the fronts were done.

I coloured direct to card. The colours did indeed bleed through to the inside of the card, so I used the two smeared cards to fussy cut two more holly images. On the first card with the lighter coloured holly, I was able to to merely glue one fussy cut holly image down over the messy area and it worked like a charm! The second card needed a triangular snippet of holly paper, and then the fussy cut image.

I rather think I chose the wrong type of sentiment stamp for the inside. I had a small smear of ink on the inside and got so obsessed with finding a sentiment that would cover it up, that I forgot about keeping my card clean and simple. I used a NBUS Penny Black sentiment stamp called Glad Tidings. I wish I had just picked a plain sentiment and to heck with the teensy smear...but you know what they say about hind sight!

The envelopes were stamped with the same Holly image as the card fronts.

I am entering this card in the CAS Christmas Card Challenge.