Hello crafty friends and welcome to this week’s Christmas card – it’s exactly six months to the big day! I haven’t actually had my Winter Build a Wreath stamps out yet again – this started life as an ATC (artist’s trading card) that I made for my demos at Clarity’s Open Days last month. I’m a bit short of time this week (busy prepping for my next Clarity Social TV shows on Friday) so I decided to repurpose it as a card topper.

My starting point was the small stencil card from Clarity’s Mini Makes card collection. I traced a small pencil oval onto it and then started to create my wreath, initially using two of the leaf stamps with ‘evergreen bough’ and ‘iced spruce’ Distress Oxides (appropriately enough!) I inked up the little robin in ‘gathered twigs’ & ‘fired brick’ Distress Inks and perched him on the base of the wreath – the easiest way to get two colour on a small stamp is to use a stamp pen and tap the stamp against the corner or edge of the inkpad. I used the little circle from one of the other wreath sets to add the berries, again in the ‘fired brick’, then mounted it on one of the Waimea Falls designer card pieces from the collection.

So, that’s where this had sat for the last few weeks until today! I added a narrow mount of gold card, scattered gold dots around the wreath using a Posca pen and attached it to a 5×5 card blank. The final touch was to add one of the gold Christmas Rub On Sentiments.

So I guess the Christmas countdown starts today! There are Christmas themed blog challenges running all year, though, so I’m heading off to share this with The Holly and Ivy and Peace on Earth