Hello friends. In case you thought I hadn’t got a Christmas card to share this week, here it is now! I’m delighted to have been invited along as Guest Designer for the new challenge at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, although it definitely did give me a bit of a challenge as I don’t usually make shaker cards! I solved it with Clarity’s star window aperture die and a piece of acetate, so read on for the details…

The first step was to cut the die into a piece of stencil card that I’d trimmed down to fit on a 6×6 card blank and then glue a piece of clear acetate onto the reverse behind the diecut. I found some old foam tape in a drawer (don’t ask how long it’s been there…!) and went around the edge of the die cut with pieces, making sure they butted up against each other so my sequins wouldn’t leak! I then filled up the rest of the back of the card with strips of the tape.

Now, my first thought was to pour the sequins over the back of the die cut & then stick the card blank onto the tape. Clearly, that wouldn’t work, as they’d all drop out when I turned the die cut over to put it on the card; alternatively, if I tried to put the card blank down onto the die cut I wouldn’t be able to see whether the topper was straight (I told you I rarely make these cards!) My solution was to work out where on the card blank the aperture would sit, then pour a pile of the sequins onto the card front (did I mention they’d been in a box since before Covid…) and lay the topper down over them. So that’s what I did, although I slightly overdid it with the sequins and they don’t shake about quite as much as I’d intended!

I picked out a scrap of Clarity’s companion paper and cut the central part of the star from it. I’d saved the white card star sections, so glued them in place onto the acetate first, then pieced the pink paper over the top. I finished with a KISS word sticker mounted on another bit of the pink paper.

I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself for managing this one, even if it is slightly overfilled with sequins! It’s heading for a few other challenge galleries – the Christmas theme at The Holly & Ivy is always ‘anything goes’, Make My Monday are looking for dies or punches on cards, and my long forgotten sequins & foam tape qualify for Neglected Stuff!