Firstly I’d like to thank Lisa for selecting my card as A Cut Above at the Paper Players for last week’s challenge. My sister called me yesterday morning to tell me; since she’s in the UK she’s five hours ahead and could see this before me.

I bought the Expressions Natural Elements on a whim, not sure if they would fit my style of clean and simple cards – but they do. I was trying to create a Christmas card with blue and white and texture for the Merry Monday Challenge and somehow decided to make a Paper Pumpkin November 2015 Alternate idea. I played around for a while before realizing that the square joy stamp would make a great bauble. This is definitely an example of a card which evolved rather than being planned.

I stamped the joy in night of navy on whisper white and after cutting out the three baubles using a retired holiday ornaments framelits set (the circles collection could work although you’d need to add the topper from this year’s delicate ornaments dies) I realized that they weren’t going to work too well on a night of navy base. I really wanted the richness of the night of navy for the card base so I cut some whisper white circles with the bigshot and built my baubles. Then I played with ribbon and twine but nothing looked right. My box of “stuff” was in front of me and the expressions natural elements were right there. Finally a way to have the baubles be attached to something without it being too fussy. The natural look didn’t fit the card so I pressed the wooden piece into the versamark and then sprinkled the embossing powder over it. This is another time where it’s crucial to use Brian King’s tip about a metal tin lid when embossing that I referenced a couple of days ago – and I should have used my brother’s tip to put sandpaper underneath the very light and easily blown around wooden element! I glued the celebrate onto the card using the multipurpose glue. The envelope is finished off using the envelope liners framelits with the regals designer series paper stack.