May Christmas card: Red snowflakes

When you think of snowflakes, red is probably not the first color that comes to mind. But when I looked through the Christmas cards I had made so far this year, there were a lot of neutrals (white, cream, kraft, brown) and a few pops of color (mainly greens and blues). But there was hardly any red in the bunch. So I decided that I wanted red to be the main color for my May Christmas cards. I also wanted (surprise!) a clean and simple design. So with those things in mind, I started looking through my Christmas stamps and found the old Stampin' Up! set Northern Hearts. I love the Scandinavian-style images and was especially drawn to the snowflakes, which I thought would look really striking on a monochromatic card. So red snowflakes was the result:

Supplies (all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted):

Stamps: Northern Hearts, Inside Christmas Greetings (Simon Says Stamp)

Paper: Whisper White, Real Red card stock

Ink: Real Red

Accessories: Red rhinestones, jute twine (May Arts Ribbon), Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers), foam tape (3M)

This is a simple layout, but it really wasn't easy. I had to pitch several card fronts because the stamp slipped or I pressed too hard and got ink on the edge of the stamp and then on the card stock. Clean and simple cards (especially on white) are not the most forgiving when it comes to those little oopsies! I know I could have used a stamp positioner, but I didn't want all of the cards to look exactly the same. And since I stamped each snowflake two to four times, I would have had to set up each card front in the positioner several times, which I just didn't want to do.

At any rate, I stamped the snowflakes using Real Red ink, leaving space at the bottom of the white panel to stamp the sentiment. I rounded two opposite corners of each panel and added a red rhinestone to the center of three of the snowflakes. I planned to mount the panels on red card bases, but I wanted to break up the color and add a bit of fiber. So I wrapped jute twine around each card front three times and taped down the ends in the middle of the card front where they would be hidden. Then I applied foam tape to the back of the stamped panels and attached them to the card bases. (This card is definitely mailable, but you could easily skip the foam tape and adhere the panel directly to the card if you wanted it to be flatter.)

I haven't been good at keeping up with my blog posts, and I have a lot of cards to share -- some really cute ones, too, at least in my opinion. :) I'm going to work on getting back on track, so I'll try to get at least one more post one by the end of the month.

Thanks for stopping by today!