A card for many occasions/challenges: H2H, RCC32, SSD #105, Moxie Fab Trigger Tuesday

This is another one of those cards where there was a perfect storm of challenges....partially owing to the holiday season. The challenges at H2H and Ribbon Carousel both had inspiration photos which you can see below. I was inspired by the colors and the candy stripes at RCC32 and all the all ornaments an polka dots at H2H.





Moxie Fab World's Tuesday Trigger also had lots of those round metallic ornaments, and while I took my color cue from H2H and RCC, I was inspired by the lovely line of the scattered ornaments on the grounds, and tried to get some of that feel in my card.



Finally, I followed the sketch at Skipping Stones Design for the layout of the card.

This was a fun card to make. I used the Happy Clusters stamp set, which is one of my favorite. I've pulled it out on so many occasions, and the truth is I haven't even made a star/tree card using it yet. I just love all the little circle elements that are included.

For the little green squares, I used three of the larger circles, random stamped them onto the cardstock using Topiary ink, and then mounted them on two larger squares of Topiary cardstock.

The piece with the sentiment is a little trickier. It's NOT die cut (hope for all of you who don't have a machine yet). The 'Merry' was hand drawn and then cut out using my CTMH cutting knife--a great cutting knife that gives you tons of control. If you don't like your writing or don't think you can do it, not to worry. A simple solution is to use alphabet stickers. Just adhere them to the cardstock, and then cut them out in the same fashion. You could also trace a dimensional element in pencil. You don't have to have the fanciest/most expensive tools to achieve the same look!

After I cut my letters out, I used Cranberry and Topiary ink and random stamped all those circles onto the cardstock. As I mentioned before, I was trying to get a feel similar to that from the Moxie Fab trigger photo. Then I added the solid circles. I have two hol3 punches. They're about 3/8" and 3/16". I punched a bunch of circles out and then adhered them to the sentiment piece. Then I adhered the whole thing to an old piece of Bazzill scrap.

For the ribbon/twine element, I cut a very thin piece of cardstock (thinner than the 3/8" grosgrain ribbon, so it looks like it's just the ribbon there. Then I added two strips of twine (I wanted it to look a little like wrapped present). The little bow is so easy to make. Just wind the twine around two of your fingers a bunch of times. Remove, cut a small piece of twine and tie it tightly around the middle and fluff. I added the green bow on top for a little added contrast.

Hope you are having a great weekend and getting to do some crafting too!

Supplies Used:
Stamps: CTMH - Happy Clusters
Paper: CTMH - White Daisy, Topiary, Cranberry; Bazzill - Scrap of Red paper
Ink: CTMH - Topiary, Cranberry
Other: Twinery - Maraschino/Peapo twine; CTMH - Cranberry Grosgrain, cutting tool, Misc - Hole punches