ORNAMENT KEEPSAKES

I thought I would show you a few of the possible Christmas cards I have come up with thus far.
I always make several different cards so I have a nice selection to choose from when sending
my greetings of the season.

The first card utilizes something really cool from the Holiday Catalog: The Ornament Keepsakes Bundle. You see, you have a choice. You can either order the Ornament Keepsakes stamp set
and the Holiday Ornaments Framelits to die cut the stamped images separately. OR, Stampin'
Up! had a great idea this year. They bundled the two items to save you 15%.

I'm sure you've already seen lots and lots of ornaments and cards using these two products
around the Internet. And why not?? They are gorgeous, completely gorgeous. Here's my take:

When using one of the nine ornaments that come in the stamp set on a card, you have several options on how to do it. You could heat emboss one of the ornaments with your favorite metallic embossing powder, or even one of the cool colored embossing powders Stampin' Up! carries, cut it out with the appropriate Framelit, and adhere it to a card front. You could do that with a selection of maybe three of the different ornaments. Instead of embossing, you could simply stamp them in different colored inks. There are any number of variations on that same theme.

I opted to go with the three-dimensional ornament look. I simply stamped and die cut three of the identical ornaments. Fold them all in half, adhere them back to back to each other. Then mount it to the card. The back of the ornament will be flat against the card. The cool thing is that -- to save that extra 20 cents postage -- the front two layers of the ornament lay down flat for mailing. The recipient then just rejuvenates it by pulling the two flattened side upwards. Voila! (You may have to come up with the extra 20 cents though if you add the bow. The knot gives the USPS a problem.)

The beautiful embossed background that is the perfect home for this ornament is made with the new Holiday Frame Textured Impressions Embossing Folder. The Gumball Green ribbon is some of the 3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon that comes in this year's In Colors, Midnight Muse, Primrose Petals, Raspberry Ripple, Summer Starfruit, and of course, the Gumball Green. The elegant greeting comes from the Snow Swirled set, and it is stamped on a label from the Lots of Tags Sizzlits set. And, of course, I sponged the edges with Gumball Green (I'm a big sponger!), and mounted it over the ribbon with Stampin' Dimensionals.

I think it makes a pretty card. Do YOU like it?

Smiles.