Aloha, all!
When I first felt the This Christmas Specialty Designer Series Paper from the Stampin' Up! 2016-2017 Annual Catalog, I knew it would be perfect for Tea Bag folding for Christmas cards! The reason is that it's not nearly as heavy as standard Designer Series Papers. Another benefit, is that there's more of it! There are 24 sheets in the package, with FOUR sheets of each of the 6 designs (most Designer Series Papers have only 2 sheets of each of 6 designs).
So, with the biweekly Stampin' Up! Only Challenge this time a challenge to use Holiday Papers, I felt that this was a good time to try out my Tea Bag folding with the This Christmas papers.
The Tea Bag Fold that I used here is called a "Rosette." I briefly thought about making a tutorial to show how to make it. But in this case, there are so many good tutorials available on the Internet, that I decided my time would be better spent making these lovelies than writing about how to make them. Set your browser to search for "Tea Bag Rosette," and you'll have lots of hits.
Back to the Designer Series Papers! There are three designs from the This Christmas set in this card: The Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler floral print; the Cherry Cobbler striped print; and the Garden Green print with Holly Berries (for the Rosette and also the mat behind the Cherry Cobbler print).
For the sentiment, I used the Banners for Christmas Stamp Set that's in the Stampin' Up! 2016 Holiday Catalog. If you look at the images in the catalog, you'll see that the words, "Peaceful" and "Christmas," are straight line stamps. But with this kind of a Photopolymer stamp, it's possible to arrange it into a bit of a curve without damaging the stamp at all. And that's what I did with these two words. It takes a bit of trial and error, but that's easily done with scrap paper. I stamped the banner itself using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, which is also a color in the Designer Series Paper. I cut the banner using the Bunch of Banners Framelits, also in the 2016-2017 Annual Catalog.
To develop the layout for this card, I arranged everything on the front of the card before adhering any papers or stamped images to anything else. Even so, now that I look at the photograph, I think I could have scooched the vertical layers over to the left just a little bit more. Nonetheless, I do like the layout in general, and will likely use it again.
I hope you'll take the time over the next two weeks to make a card of your own using some of Stampin' Up!'s Holiday Papers and enter them into the Stampin' Up! Only Challenge. This is really a fun challenge and we'd love to see how you use your holiday papers (oh, and "Holiday" doesn't refer just to Christmas – that Halloween Night Specialty Designer Series Paper is gorgeous with all that silver in it!)
And here are the products I featured in today's project. I hope you'll like some of them enough to click on an image and go to my website to buy them!