The Spot Challenge #120 – Christmas in July – Coming Home. I am really enjoying the challenges that we are sharing with you all over at The Spot Weekly Challenges. This week we are looking at Christmas In July. As Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators, we all have the opportunity to order from the the August – December Mini Catalogue a month early. Of course, we have all been tempted and now have some more lovely new goodies to ‘play’ with.

I have focused on the Trimming The Town Suite, which is such a fun set of products. There are some amazing designs on the Designer Series Paper, including a great winter scene, which would be perfect as the front page if you keep a December Daily. There are also lots of great designs that are Not Just for Christmas, which is my theme for the next few days of posts, including today.

I have made two versions of my project, one winter ‘Happy Christmas’ version and one as a ‘Welcome to your New Home’ version. Other than the die cuts and some of the embellishments, they are basically the same. They use the same die cutting and the same images and, dare I say, other than the sentiment inside, no stamping!!

As the Challenge Theme is Christmas, I will start by concentrating on the Christmas version. I discovered something, that you may already know. To emphasis the snow idea, I wanted to add some white heat embossing to the roofs, but was not quite sure how I would achieve this, especially as I wanted it in very specific places. I decided to see what would happen if I added White Stampin’ Emboss Powder over Multi Purpose Liquid Glue. The answer is that if you heat the powder before the glue dries, you get puffy heat embossing (AKA SNOW!!). I love a happy accident! I added some Snowflake Sequins for added sparkle (these are a Returning Favourite from last year).

To emphasis the whole snow theme, I scrapped the pattern off the bottom of the houses and added more Snowflake Sequins here. This worked really well, particularly as I had added the die cut houses (from one of the sheets of Designer Series Paper) to some card (also die cut) so they were stiff enough to stand on their own. Oh, and before I move on to the Not Just For Christmas card, I should add that the die cut words (using the new Red Foil) are from Word Wishes Dies (no longer bundled with Wish for Everything).

Not Just For Christmas

For my Not Just For Christmas version I have made exactly the same card, just choosing paper without any Snow. I didn’t need to bother with Heat Embossing or sequins for this one. Instead of Red Foil, I used Brass Foil for the ‘welcome’, which is from ‘Well Written’ (no longer bundled with Well Said). For all the words, I added three layers of card, also die cut, and backed all of the die cuts with our Adhesive Sheets before running the card through the die cutter. The extra layers of card make the words stand out better, while the Adhesive Sheets make sticking the layers together really easy.

The Designer Series Paper and stamps both have houses in a range of sizes, so making a card like this, where you want perspective, really easy to make. I looked at the size of the front door to decide the order to place them on the card. I find this is an easier way, particularly when the shapes of them are so varied.

A couple of pointers if you want to make a card similar to these ones. First, do remember that you need to sort out the perspective, or things will just look ‘odd’. But, my main tip is to only adhere extra elements to the front edge of the ‘mountains’. If you add houses to the rear of the mountains, they will tip forwards. I just about got away with it for the trees because they are smaller and I gently persuaded them to stand straight. I know you are going to be asking for the cutting instructions. Don’t worry, they are coming. I generally include these right at the end of my posts, so you just need to be a little patient. ‘All things come to those who wait!’

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