A Hanukkah Card for Janet!

Aloha, all!

     Every year at this time I make dozens of Christmas cards, but only one Hanukkah Card – for my close friend, Janet.  I was so glad when Stampin' Up! included a Hanukkah stamp in their 2011 Holiday Mini Catalog – and as an A la Carte stamp, so I didn't have to buy a whole set.  Janet's friendship is definitely worth spending the money for a whole set, but it was nice that I could get just one.  Today's card also fits well with the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge theme:  Merry and Happy and Joyous!

     As a quick aside, those of you who may have seen the picture of the stamp in the catalog and are familiar with Hanukkah may have wondered about the accuracy of the symbols on the driedels pictured.  If you thought they were wrong, you were absolutely correct!  But Stampin' Up! corrected the actual stamp; so what you get when you order the stamp will be correct.  I learned this by researching this stamp on the internet while trying to figure out my own design for a greeting card.  The letters are in the correct order to say, "A great miracle happened there."  Thank you fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator Yapha Mason for that.

     Now for the design – if you think that I've gone off the wagon and am no longer using Stampin' Up! Only products in my projects, you'd be wrong!  There are exciting new products coming in Stampin' Up!'s 2012 Occasions Mini Catalog on January 3rd.  One of them is Stampin' Up!'s own line of the new Sizzix Framelits!  I can hardly wait to show them to you come January 3rd.  But for the next couple of weeks, I hope you'll enjoy some of the projects that I'll be making using them.

     Looking back at the Hanukkah Stamp, as I said it's an A la Carte stamp, which means you can purchase it as a single stamp.  The stamp itself has the stars and driedels hanging from the word "Hanukkah" as if they were ornaments.  I decided to leave the strings out of the stamped image also based on comments by Yapha Mason, who seems to know what she's talking about!  I inked the stamp using a Night of Navy Stampin' Write Marker and just didn't ink the strings.  It helped that this was the first time I used this stamp so there was no lingering ink anywhere. 

     For the colored driedels, I first just tried coloring the driedels in with Daffodil Delight Markers but decided they weren't bright enough.  So I restamped just the driedels onto Daffodil Delight Textured Card Stock and added them to the stamped image with Mini Glue Dots.

     The other colors in this card are Whisper White (not a color, I know – but it's there!) and Marina Mist.  Of course, I had to use some Stampin' Up! ribbon to tie the card together – this time some Daffodil Delight 1/8" Taffeta Ribbon.

     I'm almost done with my Christmas cards – just about a half dozen to go, and I'll be sharing them with you as the month goes on!  I hope you're having as much fun with this holiday season as I am!!