Hello crafty friends. I’m back with another Christmas card, this time using Stampin; Up!’s ‘merriest moments’ set and some retired ‘joyous noel’ paper. This one picks up the sketch from The Paper Players and the left hand column from TicTacToe‘s grid (stitching, wreath & sparkle)

I started with a piece of the’joyous noel’ paper and cut two squares, one slightly smaller than the other. I attached the green side to a 6×6 card blank, then flipped the smaller piece and trimmed it into three pieces before sticking it to the green base.

I cut a circle from the green side of the paper using a couple of nested dies and attached that to the card front. I then stamped the poinsettias from ‘merriest moments’ and heat embossed them with WOW’s ‘ice cream’ sparkle powder before die cutting them. They then went onto the lower part of the ring using foam pads.

I used one of Julei Hickey’s die cut banners and blended ‘pumice stone’ Distress Oxide into it before stamping the stitched border onto it using SU’s ‘evening evergreen’. I added the sentiment from the ‘peaceful noel’ set, also in the dark green, and attached it to sit under the flowers. I finished with a few berry sprays that I die cut from copper card, but still felt something was missing! I realised I hadn’t stamped the centres into the poinsettias, so quickly added them in the dark green (I don’t recommend this as a technique – I should have done it before putting them onto the foams pads!) It was exactly what was needed though.

I do love the cream poinsettias you can get – they’re a pretty change from the usual red ones. Here’s another close up so you can see the stitching on the banner and the sparkle in the flowers a bit better.