Happy New Year......

Hi Everyone, and "Happy New Year". I hope 2012 is a great Year for you..Have you made any New Year's Resolutions yet? I've made a couple and the main crafting one is to get my Christmas cards for 2012 on the go straight away.. Each year I say it, and each year I find myself on Christmas Eve finishing of my immediate family and friends cards, when really I should be down the pub!!
So, with that in mind my first Blog Post of 2012 is a..... Christmas card.... Hopefully to help and inspire you to get going with your cards for this year and in the greater scheme of things help us all not leave it to the last minute again! Periodically I will be posting Christmas cards throughout the year, so don't be surprised to find a Crimbo card posted in the middle of summer!
So, here we go with our first one.
Personally, I don't think you can go wrong with a little bit of Black and White,or even White and Black.Notice the difference in the colour ways of the Baubles!I started off by cutting out my border using a Memory Box Die (98146 Snowflake (Frostyville)). These dies are new to us here at Pinnacles and have already proved immensely popular. They go through all of the main die cutting machines and are used in the same way you use your Nestabilities.One suggestion I would make when using this particular border die is to have the "straight" edge facing inwards on your card stock,this way you can either add it as a decorative edge directly to a base card or,as in this case cut the edge to the width that you require for your project.If you place the "straight edge directly or near to the edge of your card stock,when the die is cut you end up with a very thin edgewhich doesn't really leave you much room to add any adhesive to the cut piece to add it to your project..
I put the border to one side whist I prepared my Baubles...I used the Memory Box Die 98231 Snowflake Ornament to cut out an image in Black and White card stock.I used 225gsm - 240gsm card stock as this weight card released the pieces from the Bauble much easier than my preferred 290gsm card stock.I then ran my Tape Pen over an area on a scrap piece of card stockand stuck one of my Bauble images to it.I then filled the spaces in the Bauble with the waste from the corresponding image in a different colour.. Now, for those of you who are aware of Memory Box dies, you may be saying that there is a solid image of the Bauble that you could lay the more ornate image directly onto to give this effect!.. That, my crafting friends is very true.. However, firstly I don't have that particular die and also, for me, filling in the image gives a much fuller shape to the Bauble. It doesn't take long to pop the pieces back in and makes good use of the waste and is quite therapeutic to do, a bit like a Jigsaw Puzzle..I did this for both colour waysand then cut each image out.
I then had a "dummy run" to see which colours went best together on my prepared base card.All Black Baubles,all White Baublesor one of each!Decision made, I cut two strips of card 1/4" wideand applied them to the back of my Snowflake border to which I had added some foam tapeand then attached it to my card.I added one layer of foam tape to the back of one of the Baubles and Two layers of tape to the other Bauble.This would give the Baubles a bit of dimension between each other when added to the card.I then finished the project off with some Gems, Bows and a Sentiment...And there you go....
Now, not all of my friends like Black and White, and also to make it a little bit more interesting for me to churn them out I tried a few other colour ways..Green and White or is it White and Green? These were obviously made in exactly the same way as before..But instead of opening another packet of Green Gems to finish the project, I simply coloured some Clear Gems used on the Black and White version with a ProMarker Pen.. Also colouring a Silver Peel Off to match the project.How about Lilac and White or White and Lilac?Turquoise and White or White and Turquoise?And last but by no means least, my favourite.. Red and White or White and Red!!
There we go; we've already done 10 cards for this Christmas...
Thanks for checking us out, see you soon.
Andy.