Aloha, all!
After several weeks of making Christmas Cards, I'm just about ready to start making some cards with colors that are outside of the range of my favorites. So it's fitting that the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge this time is to share a project (card or other paper-crafted project) that shows off my favorite Holiday colors.
Since my childhood, Red and Green have been my favorites. No matter what time of the year it is, when I see Red and Green together, I'm reminded of Christmas. A red rose with green leaves in June – Christmas. The Manila Palms in my front yard have large, bright red seeds in their inflourescence, and that reminds me of Christmas no matter when they happen. Hey, even others nicknamed the palm the "Christmas Palm."
For my Stampin' Up! Christmas Cards, I've either used Garden Green and Real Red (with the Christmas Quilt Suite) or Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler (the colors in the Be Merry Designer Series Paper). It's this latter set of colors that I picked for today's SUO Challenge Project. And it's a fun "Fun Fold"!
This pattern is called a "Tri Shutter Card." I'm not sure why it's "tri" as there are 4 folds and 5 panels. So I'm guessing that it's the 3 strips from left to right that give it its name I could not find a specific pattern I liked for a very specific reason. I like to make cards that use 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock. The main reason is that I conduct card-making classes, and sometimes it's a pain in the neck to find enough 12" square sheets of cardstock of the same color to make my samples as well as provide cardstock for the whole class. The smaller sheets comes in packs of all one color, so that makes using them a lot easier. So this card is made with 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock AND the finished card fits into a standard A2-sized envelope, such as the medium envelopes sold by Stampin' Up!
Now back to the Red and Green. This is one of the many cards I've made lately with the Be Merry Designer Series Paper that can be found in the Stampin' Up! 2017-2018 Annual Catalog. There are so many pretty designs in this set, and I'm so glad to have been able to use them in so many different ways. But this is the first card that's allowed me to use FIVE different patterns from the paper as primary layers. The Happy Christmas greeting is from another product from the Annual Catalog, the Oh, What Fun Stamp Set, as is the Oh, What Fun stamp on the back panel. The cross-stitch style stamps are from the Smitten Mittens Stamp Set, from the Holiday Catalog. Unhappily, this stamp set and its coordinating framelits will be retiring after the Holiday Catalog sales period ends. But I've certainly enjoyed using it this year, especially with the coordinating sheet in the Be Merry paper set!
For those of you on my newsletter mailing list, I'll be including a tutorial for this card in next week's newsletter, along with Year-End sale updates.
