Inspired by a Challenge!

Aloha, all!

     As you might suspect, when something new and fun appears in a Stampin' Up! Catalog, I'm certain to have it on my very next Stampin' Up! order.  But sometimes something new arrives in the craft room and immediately gets put away "in a safe place."  Today's card shows off one of those products.  I was reminded that I owned this product when my online Stampin' Up! demonstrators group, SUDSOL, had a challenge to use it.

     The "it" refers to the new Flourish Designer Frames in the 2012 Stampin' Up! Holiday Catalog.  I saw the challenge and thought, "Hmmm.  Don't I have those somewhere?"  I went and dug them out last night and decided a Christmas Card would be perfect for such a frame.

     I had only begun to look through my stamp sets when I happened upon the Stamp Set, Bells and Boughs.  which first appeared in a Holiday Catalog two years ago!  It is such a gorgeous set that I'm glad it's stayed around for awhile.

     Most of the time I've used this set in a more "vintage" setting.  But when I pulled it off my shelf and laid the Designer Frame over the Poinsettia image, I immediately got the idea to do a bit of "spotlighting" with it.  So I colored in that part of the stamped image that would be framed (Real Red, Old Olive and Always Artichoke), and left the image outside of the frame uncolored.  BUT – it's two separate pieces of card stock.  I first decided on how I wanted the stamped image to lie on the piece of Very Vanilla Card Stock (this image looks good in many different orientations), traced around the OUTSIDE edge of the frame, and then colored and punched the image with the Decorative Label Punch that matches the shape of the Designer Frames.  I stamped the black image on another piece of card stock and adhered the colored image on top of the black and vanilla image. 

     After layering up the framed layer, I decided to use the greeting from the same stamp set, punched with the same punch, and then outlined with the pierced image of the same shape from the Paper Piercing Essentials Pack, which is found in the 2012-2013 Stampin' Up! Catalog. 

     Originally I envisioned the framed layer overlapping the greeting layer.  But when I started actually laying out the finished layers, I decided I wanted it the other way around.  I slipped the upper left corner of the greeting layer under the frame and marked the corner that peeked out onto the stamped poinsettia image with a pencil.  Then I punched that corner of the label with the Decorative Label punch so nothing of that layer showed in the frame.  Finally I adhered the poinsettia layer to the card front using Sticky Strip, and then adhered the greeting layer with Stampin' Dimensionals.

     There are two reasons I used Sticky Strip to adhere the poinsettia label.  First, that layer is a bit heavy, with four layers of card stock plus the label.  Second, I texturized the top Real Red layer with the Petals a Plenty Embossing Folder, and I've found that flat layers adhere better to an embossed layer with the Sticky Strip. 

     A fun card!  Now I wonder what other products I bought and hid away.  My days are packed with meetings this weekend, but I bet I'll have some time to look for hidden treasures in between!

     I hope you have as much fun with your projects this weekend as I had with this one!