Blogger Challenge: Week 78

This week’s blogger challenge was to create a holiday card using non-traditional colors. Since I don’t celebrate Christmas, most of the holiday cards that I create are usually done in non-traditional color schemes and the card I sent to family and friends this year was no exception.

I decided to make a suspension card, sort of along the lines of this one I created last month. Every year I pick a design that I think will look great, impress people, and be easy to reproduce and every year I end up wishing I stuck with something clean and simple (and easy to reproduce) and much less labor intensive given that most people will be tossing the card in the trash in the end anyway. Unfortunately, this year was no different!

I stamped one of the snowflake images from SU!'s retired The Snowflake Spot stamp set in silver chalk ink on Riding Hood Red cardstock. I used chalk ink rather than Encore Silver because the chalk ink dries much, much faster and smudges a lot less than Encore. After stamping the snowflakes, I used a 1 3/8” circle punch to punch them out, then created the suspension mechanism using a pair of circles for each card. Even though I really like the look, I left off the rhinestone at the center so these would be more post office-friendly. You can find a detailed tutorial on making these cards here.

I used my Snowflake embossing folder to create the shimmery silver snowflake panels for each cardfront. I designed the card so I could get 5 panels from each 8 ½” by 11” sheet of paper. I used some paper in the holiday section at Target that’s much less expensive and much lighter weight than the Brushed Silver cardstock that SU! sells.

I lined up the silver and Riding Hood Red panels on the Pink Pirouette cardfront and created an opening for the suspended snowflake with a 1 ¾” circle punch. The white satin ribbon is knotted around the red and silver panels so it’s not visible from the inside of the card. The suspension mechanism is hidden between the red and pink layers.

I stamped the simple two line sentiment image from the Holiday Collection stamp set (part of this year's SU! joint promotion with Country Living magazine) on the inside of the card in coordinating ink before signing the card. I sure am glad that these are finished and in the mail!

For more non-traditional holiday inspiration, you can visit the other blogger challenge players. Links to their blogs are in the sidebar on the right.

Materials Used:
The Snowflake Spot and Holiday Collection stamp sets, Riding Hood Red and Pink Pirouette cardstock, Riding Hood Red Classic ink, 1 3/8” and 1 ¾” circle punches, Sticky Strip (Stampin’ Up!); silver paper, white satin ribbon (Target); Snowflake embossing folder (Cuttlebug); chalk ink (Color Box); clear fishing line