Christmas Card Club - Layers

It is my turn to host the Christmas Card Club this fortnight. I chose the theme of layers. I hope you will like my take on this. If you wish to pop by and see what the other ladies have created, you will see hyperlinks to their blogs on my right sidebar. If you wish to join our group, drop me an email.

My card is made from snippets and although it does not look like a lot of layers, it actually has 5.  Some of these are hidden and now I will explain how that was accomplished.

I started with a background made from snippets of 12x12 scrapbook paper. I then cut a red border strip from a snippet of red glitter paper, being careful to place a narrow 2way glue strip down the middle of the strip. I then punched 6 Martha Stewart snowflakes from a snippet of white glitter card and cut the top third off each one. I then placed a Zot glue dot on the back of each snowflake and tucked them under the red glitter strip. (Because I only used a narrow glue strip to affix the red strip, there was unglued room at each long edge to tuck the snowflakes under). Two went on the top left of the red border and four went under the border on the right side. A small clear diamond finished off this border.

In the bottom left of the card, I punched a larger Martha Stewart white snowflake and then layered the smaller MS snowflake, cut from red glitter card this time..

So far we have three layers for each of these areas of the card. I know you are thinking where is the 4th and 5th layers...they are hard to see as they are hidden!

The Noel has been cut from the same white Heidi Swapp Marquee card that was used for the snowflakes, but this time I backed it with SookWang two sided paper. I then cut four Noels and laid them down one on top of each other. The red glitter paper is quite thick and the white Marquee paper is quite thin. The four layers made the Noel stand out and not seem dwarfed by the red strip!

I added a couple of small diamonds on the N and on the L. One large diamond on the big snowflake and this card was done!

My original idea came from Pinterest and I just made my version of it. Here is the Pinterest version.

I am entering this card in the following challenges.
1. Christmas Card Club - layers
2. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets

Making the best of it!

I was reading the brand new blog of an online Two Peas friend, Craft Nerd Creates. Her post was about making a mistake on a card element and soldiering on, changing up the design, and getting the card completed.
As I was reading her post, I felt myself nodding my head. I was thinking about an image I had stamped and coloured, only to manage to go outside the lines on the last strokes...with RED copic ink. Yes...Red!!! No amount of blender pen work would budge it back into place.

I was fairly upset and determined not to give in, so I fussy cut the image, carefully cutting off the offending stamped ribbon bow and tails, leaving 3/4 of the image intact. I then filed it in my coloured images photo album and forgot about it. I have pulled it out a few times but it always seemed too small to sit alone and looked forlorn on a card.

Got it out today and suddenly thought it might work if it sat on an ornament die! Once I had that issue sorted, the rest of the card just seemed to fall into place. Right beside the photo albums of my coloured images, are more photo albums of diecuts. Green albums for Xmas themes and black for everyday.
Rolling dies through my Big Shot can leave my hands aching for days so I often get DH, or the girls, or grandkids to roll a few dies through for me. Now that I have the magnetic platform, it is easy to load it chock full of dies before they roll it through. I then file them in the albums for those days when my hands are too sore to roll thing through myself.

All the dies on this page were from those albums...so once I chose an ornament diecut from there, it was only a matter of flipping through and pulling out what other dies would go with it.

Just as I finished the card, I decided that I needed to place that circular journal spot behind the ornament. As I carefully prised the ornament forward to tuck it in, I managed to mar the image with a bent mark. Arrrgh! I decided to try a thick coat of stickles over the whole image, hoping it would hide the bent mark.  Thank goodness it worked. Added just a hint of stickles here and there over the flourish leaf die cuts and finally it was another card done and dusted!

Well....after the inside was finished up, of course!

Recipe:
Card and base from my stash
Card stock - snippets of light and dark aqua card
Patterned paper -  Pink Paislee Hope Chest journal tags
Dies - Memory Box Ornament die; corner dies are Spellbinders I think...I have mislaid the brand new label before I got it added in my book; Impression Obsession word tag; Cheery Lynn Fanciful Flourishes
Stamp - PSX Xmas Heart Wreath
3D stickers - K&Co bird (the last of these yellowy ones)
Wood embellishment - Basic Grey 25th & Pine wooden stars
Sentiment - inside sentiment is an old Christmas card; outside Noel is a Marah Johnson Impress On

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets
2. Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - must be Christmas but Anything Goes
3. Two Peas Moodboard April Challenge
4. MFP Inspirational Challenge - #56   I chose the first image. The blue and white inspired the colours used and the twine legs and arms made me remember the twig wreath languishing in my drawer.
5. Sparkles Christmas Challenges - Inspired by a Song (mine is Deck the Halls)

Imagine the horses

As soon as I saw this sweet little image at my local scrapbook store, I just had to have it. When my girls were youngsters, My Dad, my sister, and my two girls would go out on horseback into the woods,  to get a Christmas tree. The dogs went along too, and Dad would bring a section of rope and tarp and drag the tree home.

My Dad was always great at making something out of nothing...I am sure he just sort of routed round in his garage and found some twine and something to make the "tree sled" from and off they would go. The girls were always excited to be included. Dad always got a couple extra trees...one for their house, one for my house, and one for anyone who came by and needed a tree!!! He would always stick the extra tree into the snow bank alongside the driveway in the front garden. 
So you have to imagine the horses. They are standing off to the side...just off the edge of the card. Two are ponies of course!  Now you know my Christmas tree tradition, you will understand that my grandaughter,  Pony Girl 06, comes by her name honestly! I would like to try this image again as a step card, and then perhaps I can fit a pony or two on it!

Recipe
Card and Envelope - blog candy win from Sassy Raggedy
DP - Carta Bella, Merry and Bright and also My Minds Eye, Winter Wonderland (snippets)
Cardstock - from my snippets stash
Mirror card - silver and red mirror card from my snippets stash (the red is just under the image)
Die - doily is Marriane I think, circle and scalloped circles are Spellbinders
Image and sentiment - unknown (forgot to write down the name when I was at the stamp off)

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
(I have managed to keep to 5 challenges only to meet the Rudolph rules...well done me for remembering!)

1. Pixies Crafty Workshop - must use snippets
2. Rudolph Days Stamping for Pleasure - must be Christmas
3. CHNC Extra - Anything Goes with a Christmas Theme
4. Sister Act - always Anything Goes
5. CHNC - Christmas greenery
6. MFP Speedy TV Christmas CArd Challenge - must be Christmas