Christmas Alphabet - H for Holly

Afternoon All,

Well, I finally plucked up the courage and broke the seal on my treasured pad of Grahic45 Christmas Emporium paper pad to make this card. The contents of this pad are just sooooo gorgeous and my hands did shake when I started to pull out the paper and elements I'd chosen, but the quality makes it a pleasure to work with. Everything you see, except the embellishments, i.e. ribbon, card candy, brad and stickpin, came from the pad. The card base is an 8x8 Kraft card blank. I even managed to rip a sheet of paper for the backing ... how brave is that :)

Even the Poinsettia has been die-cut from the paper. I only used the  smaller petal shapes, thinking the largest one was too big but now that it's complete I think the leaves are out of proportion ... a point to watch out for next time :(  The colour of the ribbon is not showing up well because of the camera flash on the satin ... in reality, it's a really very good match.

This is the first time I've made an insert for an 8x8 card. It involved printing two sheets of paper and joining them together to get the correct size. The paper is imported from a Crafter's Companion CD-ROM into My Craft Studio,  the opacity tweaked to get a vellum effect and an oval digitally punched out to provide some white space for the writing of a greeting.

A trim from the paper pack on the back provided a finishing touch.

Materials used:

• Card Base: Docrafts Papermania 8"x8" Kraft card blank
• DP: Graphic45 Christmas Emporium 8"x8" paper pad
• Insert: Crafter's Companion Vintage Christmas, My Craft Studio Professional, white copy paper
• Flower: Spellbinders Shapeabilities Layered Poinsettia
• Other Materials: Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink pad, Papermania Special Green brad, Card Candy Vintage Berries, handmade stickpin from stash

I'm off to the SECC Hobbycrafts show in Glasgow tomorrow ... can't wait. I'm looking forward to seeing what new stuff is on offer. My DH is accompanying me this time ... wonder what he'll make of it. He's been creating a little sewing-machine corner for me today ... and, as usual made an excellent job of it. My machine was tucked away, in a corner of the dining area, and not getting much use because it was such a bother to get it out and set it up. So I hinted that I could do with it set up permanently in a place convenient to the craft space ... not in the craft space, you understand ... heavens I haven't got room for another piece of equipment in here ... just somewhere close enough for me to make better use of it. And, bless him, he has graciously sacrificed a corner of his little snug just next door ... there's no doubt about it, my crafting is taking over :)

Hoping to report back on the Hobbycrafts show tomorrow evening, if I'm not completely shattered.

Happy Crafting,