The Birth of Christ!

JOYFUL NEWS!

THIS CARD IS NAMED A 

SPLITCOASTSTAMPERS' FAVORITE 

OF THE WEEK ENDING - NOVEMBER 25, 2017

Well, I'm still on a roll for using my re-cycled gift wrap stash.  The next paper I want to use is super great...it's a matte foil with shinier polka dots.  I'm excited to see how it looks as foil cardstock is so expensive and re-cycled gift wrap isn't!

I also want to enter some challenges on Splitcoasterstampers, so I decided to check out several before I got started and get some design mojo going on how best to use my gold foil.  This resulted in being able to enter five challenges.  Check out the story below on how the design and construction evolved with my card, which you can just see below.

Ingredients:  Papers: Stampin' Up cardstock--Basic Black; Gold foil dot re-cycled gift wrap.  Die: Lifestyles--Labels 9 (discontinued); Cottage Cutz--Nativity Silhouette, Birthday (modified to Birth), Christening (modified to Christ), Thinking of You (used only "of").  Ink--Stampin' Up Craft White.  Wink of Stella--Black.  Technique: Yarn Block (for snowy night sky).  Stash: rhinestones.  Size:  4-3/4" x 6".  

The Story

For the Splitcoaststampers challenges, I definitely wanted to try to catch up on the Alphabet Challenge, specifically for Letter B with the double challenge, Letter Y: use a Yarn Block, which means to wrap yarn around a block or chipboard, then dip in paint or ink to make a pattern on your card.

After looking at the Featured Stamper challenge and visiting byHelenG.'s gallery, I chose this card from her gallery as my inspiration:

I knew then, that ny card's Alphabet Challenge Letter B would be all about the Birth of Christ.  To meet the Yarn Block requirement for the Alphabet Double Challenge, I decided to make a snowy black sky as my background.  I cut two piece of chipboard 1-1/2" x 5" and adhered them together.  I wrapped a single layer of fine yarn with a metallic thread running through it around my chipboard "block."  I used the narrow edge of the chipboard with yarn and my Stampin' Up Craft White ink.  Holding both ends of the chipboard piece at each end, I inked up the yarn on the edge and gently stamped a diagonal pattern on my black cardstock from diagonal corner to diagonal corner.  I made sure to ink up my yarn each time before touching it to my cardstock.  I turned the cardstock around 90-degrees and applied the inked yarn again diagonally across the paper from diagonal corner to diagonal corner in an opposite angle as the first application.  The finished product was a lot of  snowy white speckles all over my cardstock.  I was please...it was exactly what I was looking for.

With Virtual Stamp Night coming up in early December, our hostesses are featuring some pre-VSN challenges.  The first challenge is to make a monochromatic card; therefore with my gold foil re-cycle gift wrap in mind, I decided to use gold as my color with black as my neutral instead of white.  Therefore, to keep my nativity monochromatic, I deviated from the Featured Stamper's colorful card.  I decided to use a black silhouetted nativity scene with an underlying shaped, gold foil mat. 

I will also enter in the Free-4-All Challenge - Birthdays are Best.  My card celebrates the birth of Christ.  Finally, the fifth challenge will be the Use It Challenge requiring us to use old, forgotten or never used items from our stash.  Three of the four dies I used have been in my cardmaking stash for over a year and have never been unwrapped.