Lily-by-Gilly

Hi, and welcome to my blog.  

I’m back with another Christmas card for the 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown challenge, where I am the hostess for the month of August, and this week I have set a colour challenge for you.

I thought quite a lot about what colours to use for the challenge. Should I go for traditional reds and greens, or maybe a more contemporary look with pastel blues and pinks?  My mum would have hated that – she was a complete traditionalist when it came to Christmas.  If it wasn’t in red and green then it wasn’t Christmas!  I, on the other hand, love both.  So for my colour challenge I chose silver and gold together with white and cream – colours I wouldn’t normally mix together (probably something else I picked up from my mum!) I wonder what she would have made of my card …

Recently, I found a book by Anna Griffin in a secondhand bookshop called “Paper Crafting with Elegance”, and I was inspired by her use of layers and mixed patterns. I love how she uses traditional patterns, often found in wallpapers and textiles, and uses them in her card making. I applied some of her techniques to my card for this week.  I stamped the background with the bella toile stamp in metallic silver encore ink – it looks grey in the photograph, but is really pretty in real life, and shines as the light hits it…

For a Christmassy touch, I stamped snowflakes from the festive flurry stamp set in craft white ink onto brushed gold cardstock, giving a subtle effect, which I quite liked.

The centre layers were stamped with the layered labels stamp set, and heat embossing in silver and gold, then cut out by hand. 

I finally got to use some poinsettia dies by Marianne Designs, which were a present from my friend, Debs (thank you Debs!)  I inked through the stencil with gold metallic encore ink while the cardstock was still in the die, to show the detail on the petals…

So, lots of patterns and lots of layers in an Anna Griffin style.  I hope you like my card for this week.  Now it’s time to see what the rest of the Design Team have been up to at 52 {Christmas} Card Throwdown. 

cardstock: naturals white, whisper white, very vanilla, brushed gold, brushed silver, metallic gold;

stamp sets: teeny tiny wishes, layered labels, festive flurry, bella toile;

inks: versamark, craft white, silver and gold metallic encore;

punches & dies: modern label, window frames collection, poinsettia (by Marianne Designs);

accessories: stampin’ dimensionals, whisper white organza ribbon, mini glue dots, silver and gold embossing powders, heat tool.

All supplies from Stampin’ Up unless otherwise stated. 

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Thanks for dropping by today.