September Christmas card: Ho Ho Postage

In September and October it's always fun to see all the beautiful new Christmas products that the stamp companies release. I try not to buy too many of them -- by that point in the year I've already finished a good portion of my Christmas cards -- but when I saw the Ho Ho Postage stamp set from Simon Says Stamp, I couldn't resist. And I knew I wanted to use it for my September Christmas cards.

Supplies:
Stamps: Ho Ho Postage (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper: Pre-folded #4 cards (Marco's Paper), Whisper White card stock (Stampin' Up!), red glimmer paper (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Real Red (Stampin' Up!), Sea Glass (Gina K Designs)
Accessories: Ho Ho Postage dies (Simon Says Stamp), Pattern Party masks (Stampin' Up!), white Glitz Glitter Gel (Gina K Designs), Bitty Blooms punch pack (Stampin' Up!), Candy Cane Lane baker's twine (Stampin' Up!), Art Glitter Glue (Art Institute), foam tape (3M)

I love the images in this stamp set, and with some of them, I think that if I carefully ink just the edges of the stamp, I can use the outline with other small images to make faux postage for any season.

For this card I inked  the large reindeer stamp with Sea Glass and one of the smaller sentiment images with Real Red -- I love those colors together! I stamped the images on white card stock and cut them out with the matching dies. I wanted to give the reindeer a red nose, so I looked through my punches and happened to find a small oval punch that was almost the exact same shape as the nose on the stamped image. (That punch was part of the Bitty Blossoms punch pack -- I never would have thought to use a flower-builder punch for a reindeer's nose!) I punched the oval out of red glimmer paper and glued it over the stamped image.

I wanted to keep the background of the card white, but I also wanted to add a little "something" for visual interest. I looked through my stencils and found one with a simple diamond-like pattern and used it with white Glitz Glitter Gel to add sparkle to the card base. I purposely didn't apply the gel all over the card front; I applied one "swish" of gel and then smoothed it out a bit. I think it looks a bit like falling snow.

I used foam tape to attach the two die-cut images near the middle of the card, overlapping the corners just a bit. To finish the card I tied a bow out of red-and-white twine and glued it to the reindeer image. Simple, sparkly and so cute!

Thanks for stopping by!