Merry Monday #267 {Happy Holidays}

It's now official... Christmastime is here! It's down to the wire so if you haven't played along with us yet, now is the time! Colleen has a fun challenge for us this week; create a Christmas card in green, blue, white/silver/vellum! I adore these colors so my card was so fun to make! You can check out the challenge HERE as well as see what the other designers have come up with! ETA: I have a Christmas giveaway I'm doing if you'd like a chance to win. It's on my post from the Simply Sweet Christmas Inspiration blog hop! Just leave a comment on that post telling me about your favorite Christmas tradition and be a follower of mine on Instagram @kellylunceford.

Isn't this inspiration photo dreamy? I hope it inspires you to pull out your Christmas stamps and get creating!

I'd already decided to use these cute stockings for my card, and took the opportunity to test the colors out when I made THESE tags {you'll need to scroll down to see the stocking tag} and so I knew they would look fabulous in Hawaiian Shores and for the green, I chose New Leaf! I love this particular combination, but I think I already mentioned that! LOL!

The stockings are die cut using the Stocking Prints Die. I really like this particular die because it cuts the larger and the smaller stocking at the same time. Unfortunately, it appears that the coordinating stamp set has been retired. I stamped the "hook" image onto a strip of Stamper's Select White Cardstock and then embossed it in silver. I added some silver brads to mimic the look of nails or knobs to hang the stockings. I just love special little details like that because they give the eye some added interest and make the scene a little more realistic.

The background is dry embossed using the "Knitted" background from Richard Garay. It is such a wonderful embossing folder. I have used it for many different styles of cards. You can see them HERE, HERE and another one HERE. I have used it quite a bit, but those are just a few.

The white strip with the brads is adhered to the embossed panel using foam squares for dimension. The stockings are attached with foam squares as well and just tucked underneath the brads slightly to give the illusion that they are hanging. The entire focal panel is adhered to an A2 Hawaiian Shores card base for some added color. I decided on the blue since I only used two blue stockings. I felt like it gave the card some nice balance!

I placed the strip and stockings low enough because I planned on having the sentiment strip up above. Once it was done, I really liked the way the vellum strip looked stretched across the stockings so I added it there instead. That left quite a large space at the top that I wasn't anticipating, but I jumped at the chance to add a beautiful celery silk bow! I really like the contrast between the two greens! I also added a silver jingle bell and some silver cord. The jingle bell was just plain silver, so I added some white powder and some chunky glitter. I just rolled the tip of the jingle bell in Versamark ink and then dipped it into the white powder and heat set it! Warning: the jingle bell became EXTREMELY hot and was too hot to handle, so be careful it you try it! I would have normally just used tweezers to hold the end of the bell, but this particular bell had an interesting top so I couldn't do that. I had so much fun with this card. To be perfectly honest, it almost made it into the circular file, but I just kept at it and really ended up liking the result. Thanks for fluttering by!