Welcome to my crafty blog. I’ve been busy making more Christmas cards, and love this ‘Arrange a wreath’ set from Stampin Up, with the co-ordinating ‘wreath builder’ dies. As it’s still a way from Christmas yet, it didn’t feel appropriate to get too far into the song, so I stuck with the first day of Christmas and the partridge in a pear tree (are you singing it yet…?). I based the design on this week’s TGIF blog challenge over at http://tgifchallenges.blogspot.com/

I started by running the square mount for the card through a wood grain effect embossing folder, which then sat in the centre of a 5×5 card blank. I cut the leafy wreath from the die set in green card, and attached it to the centre of the card.

Next was to stamp out the partridge and two pears and die cut them. I blended the inks on both stamps using make up sponges to dab the highlights, before stamping. And I know that the partridge isn’t very accurate for colour (all my birdwatching friends will be shouting at me!), but hey-ho… Once cut out, I attached them to the lower left side of the wreath using foam pads.

Finally, I stamped out the ‘Merry Christmas’ sentiment from the set in a dark green, and die cut it into an oval, before attaching it to the opposite side of the wreath

I was really pleased with this card – it has a really fresh look. And in case you need to get some practice in before the festive season, here’s a link to the song – you’ve still got just over 3 months to get in tune 🙂