The Greetery Banner & Bough

I was feeling like I needed to make a little more progress on Christmas cards, so I pulled out these Banner & Bough products that I had purchased a while back from The Greetery.

I really love sets that mix stencils and stamps.  I feel like stencils really speed up the process and are so much easier than stamps when it comes solid images.

There are four stencils in the set, and then you add stamping for the details - the centers of the flowers, the pine needles, and of course the sentiment.

There are also coordinating dies available.  I really like that in addition to the large die for the entire cluster, you also get dies that cut out the banner, so you can stencil/stamp/die cut just a banner.  There are also 'standalone' stamps in the set and dies that cut them out so you can make your clusters fuller or just create your own arrangement.  I didn't use any of those this time, but I'm sure you'll see them in the future.

For my first card, I used (all Altenew inks) Silver Lake for Stencil 1 (banner base), Frosty Pink for Stencil 2 (flower base), Minty Mint for Stencil 3 (background leaves), and Ruby Red and Gray Denim for Stencil 4 (berries and the dark parts of the banner).  For the stamping I used Coral Berry for the flower centers, Hunter Green for the pine needles, and Cloudy Night for the sentiment.

To create the background, I used the Shiplap Builder Die, cutting it multiple times, and adhering the pieces to a panel of cardstock which was then adhered directly to the card base.  

I popped the floral cluster up with foam tape.  Then, because I wanted a bit more dimension, I stenciled/stamped an extra banner, die cut it, and then popped that up over my floral cluster.

I used almost all the same colors for the second version of the card except for the flowers (I used Misty Morning for the base and the stamped the center with Cloudy Sky), and the berries (which were inked with Grapevine).

To add a little more dimension/texture, I also used some Nuvo drops - Oyster for the flower centers, and clear over the berries.

Love how quickly you can create this arrangement!  Honestly, picking the colors is the hardest part!  

Thanks for visiitng!