HLS Christmas Challenge - April - Die Cuts

Welcome to the HLS Christmas Challenge. The challenge for the month of April  is to use some die cuts on your card.

Our challenge is sponsored by Happy Little Stampers where the prizes will be:

 $30 gift certificate to the winner
$10 gift certificate to each of our Favorites

 

 

 

Since I'm a die junkie the hardest part of this challenge was deciding which dies to use - LOL. Recently had made this card using frame die cuts, so had snippets left from that project. Rewatched Catherine Poolers' youtube, decided to combine the snippets with poinsettias, and Voila. Lots of die shapes.

 

 

 

- added remaining halves of the double frame die cuts which were from different 6x6 paper packs; overlapped the frames, instead of leaving spaces as on the previous card. This was a much easier effort than the spacing. Arranged in a pattern so that there would be space at the top folding card to add a cluster of poinsettias & leave space for a sentiment.

 

-Memory Box Blooming Poinsettia (861) and Small Blooming Poinsettia (902), die cut several times from white snippets...colored with copics, shaped with the McGill stylus - formed into flowers. Added some tiny beads in the center of one flower.

 

- Used HLS Mixed Christmas Sentiments with a new product: Nuvo Glue Pen and some Heidi Swap Minc Gold Foil.  The Nuvo glue is water soluble, so after cutting the transparent sentiment apart to make it fit the area, covered it with the glue. Used the Mini Misti, stamped twice - 'reinking' on the 2nd time. Used fingers to burnish the foil over the sticky glue, placed the card between some folded printer paper to make a carrier, and ran through the Big Shot. (here's a video showing the process).

Works great with no laminator or Minc.

 

I really like the look, but learned 2 things: (1) Do the foiling prior to applying anything with dimension that you don't want to get crushed - (2)a chunkier, bolder stamp image would show off better. This is a lovely Calligraphy stamp, but since the letters are slender, you don't really get the beautiful effect of the foiling as much. Still very pretty, and is giving me lots of ideas for using some of the other bolder font HLS Sentiment sets I have.

 

Hope you will join in with this fun challenge, get a head start on building a Christmas card stash for 2016 & perhaps win a fab prize too!

PLEASE REMEMBER YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE HLS STAMPS TO ENTER OUR CHALLENGES

Thanks for joining me today. Big hugs.