Stampin’ Up!’s White Christmas set is definitely in the running for my favourite stamp set in the Holiday catalogue. It’s easy to produce clean and simple (and effective) cards with this set; hence I used this set at my inaugural stamping class on Friday night.

Base: 8.5″ by 5.5″ whisper white

Mat: 4″ by 5.25″ cherry cobbler

Top layer: 3.75″ by 5″ whisper white

Stamp set: White Christmas

Ink: Memento black ink, soft sky, cherry cobbler blendabilities

Other: Dazzling diamonds glitter, 2 way glue pen, Trim the tree stack, sponges

I lightly sponged the soft sky ink onto the sky ensuring that the colour wasn’t uniform giving the impression of a very cloudy, chilly day. Next I stamped the main image of the trees and slope in the memento black ink before moving onto the tricky part. There is only one place (or so I believe) where the banner fits – I found it simplest to focus on the bottom string and after getting the right hand side of the Christmas banner on the branch, to wiggle the stamp until the left hand side is over the tree trunk. I’d advise practicing a few times on scrap paper before moving to the card since I found that one practice on the reverse side of the card wasn’t sufficient! Once I had it stamped, I coloured in the banner with the lightest of the cherry cobbler blendabilities. I used the 2 way glue pen to put a thin line of glue along the line of the slope and also where the branches connected to the trunks before sprinkling on the dazzling diamonds glitter.

After a simple assembly job, the card was complete and all that remained was to line the outside of the envelope with a paper from the Trim the Tree DSP stack. I like to use the tombow glue when lining the outside of the envelope; I just cut the paper more or less to size, adhere it with the tombow glue (wiggling the paper around if necessary) and trim off the excess. Once I started lining envelopes, I can no longer call a card complete until the envelope has some attention.