Christmas Poinsettia

I was planning on taking a little break from the art studio this weekend.  I've been spending so much time there that my husband and son didn't recognize me when I poked my head out the other day :)  Seriously, I'm so obsessed right now it's scary.  I think making my first Christmas card a couple of days ago was the catalyst!  All I can think of is Christmas.  Less than four months away!!  Anyways, I couldn't stay away --- surprise, surprise!! :)

I mentioned the other day that I received my first order from Cheery Lynn.  I love their die-cut leaves I got and I also bought some red foil (silver on the back side - bonus!!).  Anyways, I thought that the leaf die-cut and red foil combined would make for a beautiful poinsettia - it worked!!  I used two sizes of the same leaf design and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I found the foil to be quite lightweight (which means I was concerned it wouldn't hold it's shape), so I cut out coordinating pieces of cardstock and glued the foil pieces on top - they are nice and study now.  I'm still thinking that this card shouldn't go through our mail system ... after all my hard work, I don't want some machine crushing my flower - so this is definitely a "hand-delivered" type of card.  I combined several challenges from SCS, so I'm pretty proud of myself for that too (WT333 - Altered Ribbon; WT332 - Heavy Metal; F4A79 - Stacked!; WT329 Something old, something new).

Here's a picture and the details of the card  - finished size is the standard 5 1/2" x 4 1/4".  Hope you like.

"Christmas Poinsettia"

Stamps:  Gifts of Christmas (sentiment) - (SU!)

Paper:  Old Olive, Christmas DP (retired), Real Red (SU!)

Ink:  VersaMark, Old Olive (SU!)

Accessories & Tools:  Cheery Lynn small leaves #2 and large leaves #2 die-cuts, Big Shot, red foil, 1 3/8" circle punch, white half-pearls, white embossing powder, 5/8" Old Olive satin ribbon, sticky strips and dimensionals

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Using the Big Shot, I cut out six large leaves and five small leaves from red foil and Real Red cardstock.  I cut out three large leaves from Old Olive cardstock.  I glued the red foil leaves on top of the red cardstock leaves using Tombow glue and let them dry.

I also punched out a 1 3/8" circle from both red foil and red cardstock and glued them together (let dry).  This is used as the base for my flower.

I used more glue to place the large six leaves on to the base (overlapping each other slightly).  I curled the smaller leaves slightly with my fingers and then glued them on top of the large leaves, overlapping slightly and off-setting them from the large leaves.  I placed three white half-pearls in the center of the flower.  I lightly sponged Old Olive ink onto the three Old Olive leaves and glued them in behind the flower.  Before adding the flower to my card, I curled up the tips of the large leaves to add depth and give the flower more character (it's hard to see in the picture above).

I cut a thin (3/8") strip of red foil and stamped with the sentiment in VersaMark and then embossed it in white.  I centered the red strip on the piece of 5/8" Old Olive satin ribbon and used a sticky strip to adhere them together.  I added another sticky strip to the back of the satin ribbon and then glued it to the striped background paper, centering the sentiment, placing the ribbon 3/4" from the bottom of the paper and wrapping the edges around to the back.  I used more sticky strips to adhere the background paper to the card base of Old Olive.

Finally I added three mini half-pearls to each side of the sentiment and added the poinsettia above, popping it up with dimensionals to add depth.