Merry Christmas – I hope that you are all having a wonderfully happy and peace filled joyous day.

A number of my friends follow my blog (thank you) and I wanted to send them a card that they wouldn’t have already seen here. By now, they should all have received their cards so I can share it.

I struggled in the beginning with the Stampin’ Up! Festival of Trees set – I tried to put too many trees on a card I think. I am really pleased with how this card is simple but supremely elegant. I think it’s one of my best CAS (clean and simple) cards actually. Let me know if you agree!

To reproduce it, it’s simple. But here are the details. Stamp the tree in versamark on whisper white (don’t forget the embossing buddy) and sprinkle on the gold embossing powder and heat. Then using the Stampin’ Up! Endless Wishes set position the two lines of text on a clear block and check that they are lined up with each other. I find the grid paper invaluable for this. I stamped the sentiment in cherry cobbler. The whisper white was then mounted on a base of cherry cobbler.

I tried to do this card in island indigo because Jen loves teal but it wasn’t as effective. Garden green was fairly good as was perfect plum but the cherry cobbler really sang. I think I should try it with a silver tree and night of navy. Anyway, this was one of the designs of which I personally sent quite a lot.

The envelope was fairly simple – I used the Lucky Stars embossing folder on the envelope flap. It really is effective in my opinion.

I’ve been struggling with the Fab Friday challenge over the weekend; I find it tricky to use five colours on a card since I love the clean and simple style – even though the 5 colours look good together.

I was trying to go off in a non-Christmas direction but in the end, the Stampin’ Up! Festival of Trees set called to me.

I started by stamping the tree in old olive on crumb cake (2 colours down!) and then stamped the pot in cherry cobbler (three). I used the medium old olive blendability to colour in the lines on the tree where the tinsel or lights are – it is still noticeable but I prefer that it’s not stark white – or crumb cake. Then I took the coastal cabana blendabilities and coloured the baubles in the three colours along with the Stampin’ Write marker in bermuda bay (that gets me to 5 colours!).  I really like the variety in bauble colours.

Next I coloured one of the largest rhinestones in the medium cherry cobbler and put it on the top of the tree. To finish off the front of the card, I used Endless Wishes and cherry cobbler to add the sentiment. I put my crumb cake piece onto a cherry cobbler base.

To finish off the card, I used the On Point embossing folder on the flap of the crumb cake envelope – I’m so happy that Stampin’ Up! offers these.