The Greetery - Song of Christmas

     
It's Christmas Eve Day!

Today, I have this year's Christmas card to share.  It is the most detailed card I've made in years, 6 die cuts, several stamps and a bit of coloring.  I saw this collection of stamps and dies at The Greetery.  It was their October 2022 release "Song of Christmas collection" which I got 4 sets in October, but of course I didn't start playing with until December.  I was really worried I would not get them done, but with some help from Mark, a Sunday and couple evenings after work and I had the 60 cards I needed this year.

Heaven & Nature Sing Stamps and Stencils

Heaven and Nature Sing Dies

Noted Die

Sing a Song of Christmas Stamp

The stitched jumbo fishtail banner die is from Die-Namics, cut from white cardstock and stamped with the greenery and flowers from Heaven and Nature Sings stamp set.  Inks are PTI Scarlet Jewel and Ripe Avocado.

The Treble Clef (Heaven and Nature Sings Dies) was cut from white cardstock and colored with E57 and YG95 Copic markers. The notes are from Noted dies and cut from black cardstock.   The staff is cut from Kraft cardstock.

Close Up

There were several Christmas song stamps to choose from in the Sing a Song of Christmas stamp set.  I chose 'O Come O Come Emmanuel", stamped in PTI Scarlet Jewel.  

The Inside sentiment I borrowed from a Dayspring card...

"This Christmas, may God open

our hearts to His love…

our minds to His wonder…

our ears to His voice…

Our lives to His presence."

Thanks for stopping...

Wishing you a Blessed Christmas 

and Happy New Year!

Deb

The Greetery - 2022 Graduation Card

Happy Saturday!

Today, I gave a graduation card to share.  This card started a whole obsession.  It all started when a craft company called The Greetery had this 2022 Graduation Bundle 50% off in April.  It was quite the bundle - sentiment stamps, die, hot foil plate and 3 stencils. The "Congrats, Grad" is from the sentiment stamp set, red is the die cut, the silver 2022 is done with a hot foil plate and the silver stars uses one of the stencils and silver embossing paste.

So, I received the bundle within a couple days and played the die cuts and stenciling...but the hot foil plate - I wasn't sure what to do with that plate.  I have the Spellbinders Platinum die cutting machine.  Spellbinders makes the Glimmer Hot Foil machine, so I ended up researching and purchasing it.  

I spent about a week watching how to videos on YouTube and taking notes on tips, techniques, the best cardstock to use and how to get great results. 

Hot foiling uses a combination of heat and pressure to transfer the foil to the cardstock.  The Glimmer machine has a base plate that you heat which replaces you normal die cut base.  You heat the metal plate on the glimmer base, add spellbinder foil, then your cardstock and 2 glimmer plates to the sandwich. Then run the heated sandwich through the Spellbinders Platinum die cut machine.  Here is a short video showing the Hot Foil process. 

My machine works great without extra cardstock shims or anything other than the plates provided.  Every machine is different, so I was excited I didn't have any experimentation...it just worked.  And...the obsession began.  

The cardstock recommended online is white Hammermill 110 lb cardstock.  It is not very expensive and works great for hot foil.  You need a very smooth cardstock for a good transfer.  I had already made the red die cut using PTI Pure Poppy cardstock.  It is a heavy and smooth cardstock, so just used it and it worked really well.  I have lots of PTI cardstock so I look forward to trying more colored cardstock in the future.  

I made quite a few cards using hot foil, which I will post in the coming months.  Next week, I will post the Mother's day card I made with a hot foil border and sentiment.

Until next week, thanks for stopping by...

Blessings,

Deb