Alaska Achievers Blog Hop-Merry Patterns Snowflake Card

Welcome to the very first monthly Alaska Achievers Blog Hop where Stampin' Up! trip achievers from all over the world will delight and inspire you with creativity and ideas featuring Stampin' Up! products.  You are at Candy Rattray, sweetstamper.com.  The full list of demonstrators on the hop is listed below, so if you get lost along the way at any point, just refer back to the list and see where you need to go next.  

Today I'm sharing a handmade Christmas card I created for my Stamping Bingo event last week.  

All my attendees received a goody bag including:

• 1/6 pkg of 4 different Designer Series Papers including Christmas Around the World DSP(shown here), Coffee Break DSP, Be Merry DSP, and Painted Autumn DSP
• Christmas Around the World Embellishments
• 1/2 spool Old Olive 1/8" Sheer Ribbon
• Mini Dimensionals

Those were the design "parameters" I used for the Make & Takes, 2 fall cards and 1 Christmas card. (Come back later in the week to see the other cards we made!) For my handmade Christmas card, I went with blues and greens and just a pop of red.  I adore the little Christmas Around the World wooden embellishments!  Although they are lovely in their raw wood state, I love adding ink and changing the look entirely.  

I painted the wooden gift with Wink of Stella first.  That seems to seal it just a bit so that it doesn't absorb too much ink and thereby become too dark in color.  Then I simply tapped it into my Real Red ink pad.  You can remove it with tweezers to save your manicure, but I just grab it with my fingers:)  

To get the colors on the snowflake, simply turn over one of the Foil Snowflakes and add color as desired with Stamping Sponges or Sponge Daubers.  Both work effectively in bringing color to the snowflake.  Just be mindful that the Foil Snowflakes are a bit delicate, so you need to be gentle when adding color.  Dab–don't scrub!  I started with Pear Pizazz in the center and then added Pool Party, and then I added Island Indigo just around the edges.  My color scheme came directly from the card stock and DSP I had already chosen.

The stamp is from Merry Patterns, a fabulous stamp set you can earn free through the end of October. Click here for all the details for this free stamp set I shared in a previous post. And I must tell you that the original card did not have rhinestones.  One of the ladies at Bingo had some in her crafting bag and added a few to her card.  It was the perfect finishing touch, so I copied her:)  Thanks, Hortense!  You had the perfect finishing touch!

Thanks so very much for stopping by today on our blog hop.  You are now leaving Candy Rattray, sweetstamper.com.  Hop on over to the next blog for more creative, paper crafting inspiration!