RemARKables Blog Tour– The Holidays are coming…

It’s my favorite time of the month–the RemARKables blog tour!! As you may have noticed over the last couple of months, we’ve shifted our focus to all the wonderful bundles Stampin’ Up! has decided to offer its customers starting with the new Annual Catalog! 🙂 And have you SEEEEEEEN the new Holiday Catty?!?! That thing is CHOCK FULL of more bundles than you can shake a stick at!! 🙂 This month (and I imagine the next couple of months), we are focusing on holiday bundles.

This month, I’ve chosen another punch/stamp bundle from the Annual Catalog (I haven’t gotten to shop the new catalog yet 😦 no pretty, current holiday DSP for me– though PS… I’m LOVING the DSP stacks and love that they made a stack for Merry Moments! I haven’t gotten the 12×12 yet, either, so the Stack leap frogged to the top of my wish list). Anyway… this month, I’m featuring Festival of Trees. When picking my bundle, I wanted to choose something that I could tailor for more than Christmas. And I think I managed pretty well! 🙂 I also used my Circle Framelits on 2 cards.

I actually woke up designing this card in my head this morning! When I was thinking of the Tree Punch, I saw “Jack-o-Lantern eyes.” So, I took some Pumpkin Pie cardstock and stamped some stripes from the Work of Art stamp set. Then, I punched out a black tree, then pulled it up and snipped the tip of the tree to create the notch. I took more black cardstock and cut out another circle, then trimmed it and notched in some teeth. I decided to just show half the face, but I wound up with a lot of “white” space… so I looked at my stamp set again and the garland looked like Frankenstein stitches!! Some people not only carve their pumpkins, but they draw/paint on them as well, so I took a go at it! My first one (up top) didn’t quite turn out like I envisioned and I know how to fix it for the future (see the bottom one– I’ll just mimic that one better). But it still works, I think!

The next one I thought of while laying in bed this morning, too, but only to know that I wanted to use the “tree tree” in fall colors. The rest came to me as I started working, after I’d stamped and punched out my Cherry Cobbler, Delightful Dijon, and Tangelo Twist trees. Since the trees are so angular, I decided for circular layers. The Blackberry Bliss I cut to normal card base size (8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ folded in half), then ran through the Big Shot with the largest framelit (the scalloped one). Then, I cut out a regular first layer (4″ x 5-1/4″) and took the next largest circle AND, not the next size, but the next size circle and ran some Gold Glimmer Paper through for my next layer. I did this so that I had a nice gold circle I can use on something else and it doesn’t go to waste hidden under another layer! 🙂 I adhered that layer down with Fast Fuse.

I ran a piece of Whisper White cardstock through with the one in between the last 2 I just used for my layer, used some dimensionals to pop up my trees, then stamped my sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes (a GREAT go-to to have in your aresnal) in Blackberry Bliss.

Then, naturally, I went for a Christmas card. This one, I wanted to be CAS (that’s “Clean and Simple” to you newbies). I also opted to dust off (almost literally it’s been so long since I’ve used either HAHA) my Old Olive ink and cardstock (inspired by the Merry Moments DSP 🙂 though I went with Real Red for my red). I stamped my tree in Old Olive, stamped the Christmas balls (or lights?) in Real Red, tied my Real Red Cotton Ribbon knot (I used Mary Fish’s wonderful tutorial to keep it nice and squared off and flat), and adhered it down! After that, I used what I call “outside-inside” sentiments from the Festival of Trees (the outside sentiment continues to the inside). Oh–and what Christmas Tree is complete without a star (Daffodil Delight was the handiest) on top?! 🙂