Paper Seedlings: JINGLE BELL ROCK

One of my all-time favorite seasonal songs is Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson. I have loved it since I was in high school -- simply AGES ago! -- when we played it in Concert Band. What a fun spirited piece!

I know it's retired now, but I love the Sounds of the Season dies because the set included a couple of jingle bell dies, reminding me of Sleigh Ride. I used one of the jingle bells in a pure white cardstock for this card, centering it in the middle of one of the three cute seasonal-flavored hexagons I made using the Beautiful Shapes dies.

Beccause the top portion of this card was so interesting, I decided to tone it down for the "merry" portion across the bottom. But the plain flat red cardstock was just that, plain and flat. It definitely needed some pizzazz! So I embossed it with a script folder. Much better!

Here you go: A Tutorial!

SUPPLIES:

Garden Green cardstock

Real Red cardstock

White cardstock

Assorted scraps of Christmas Designer Series Papers

Die Cutting/ Embossing Machine

Red and White Baker's Twine

Stampin' Dimensionals

Christmas Greetings Thinlits dies

Beautiful Shapes die set (page 169, Annual Catalog)

Sounds of the Seasons die set

Script Embossing Folder

White sequins

DIRECTIONS

Fold a 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" piece of white cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

Cut a piece of Real Red cardstock to about 2" x 5 1/4". Emboss this piece with a suitable embossing folder. You just want texture for interest, not a big overwhelming embossing. I used the Script embossing folder.

Adhere this to the card front, leaving even margins on the bottom and the sides. Set this aside for now.

Cut a piece of Garden Green cardstock to 2 1/4" x 5 1/4". To this, add a 2" x 5 1/4" piece of white cardstock. Adhere this to the card base, leaving even margins at the top and the sides. It may overlap the red piece a bit. That's fine.

Using the hexagon die that measures 1 1/2" from top to bottom and the die that measures 1 1/4" from top to bottom, cut three hexagons from an assortment of Christmas Designer Series Paper. This is a wonderful way to use up some of those small scraps left over from previous projects! Cut two small and one large hexagon. With the large one in the center, adhere these three hexagons to the white piece.

From white cardstock, use the retired jingle bell die to cut a bell.

Thread a piece of red and white baker's twine through the hole at the top and adhere this to the center of the large hexaagon with a Stampin' Dimensional.

From white cardstock, die cut the word "merry". Using very little green glue, add this word to the center of the red embossed piece. Add sequins to the beginning and end of the word.