Be Jolly Snowmen Wreath Template Cards

Hello lovely readers, welcome to day 3 of my wreath builder template posts and today I have not 1, but 3 cards to share with you. All 3 are almost identical (I changed my mind about one of the snowflakes after using it on the purple version lol). The stamping was super speedy 4 stamps 1 of them stamped twice so techincally 5 stamps making 8 x 5 = 40 impressions. It sounds a lot but put some music on and chill out and you'll have created the bases for a batch of cards before you know it.

These were all done super, super quickly to demonstrate the batch making ability of the Wreath Builder Templates, you don't have to just use floral stamps, you can use any small stamps you have  to make your design for any occassion. The stamps I used to create these cards I picked up in France a couple of years ago, they are by a French company called Toga but they don't seem to give their stamps a name like we do, just a code you can find them on Amazon look for 'Toga tpe34 Pad Silicon Clear', not that you'll need those particular stamps because there are a myriad snowflake stamps on the market, and if you are already a stamper you may have some that you can use.

So on to the card construction, I confess to the fact that these went together so quickly because I'd already, stamped, coloured and die cut my snowmen. When I can't sleep I use the time to stamp and colour images ready for future projects. That way when I want to make a card I have the images done already and they just need to be added when everything else is done.

The stamp and die set I used is by Avery Elle and is called 'Be Jolly' the snowman is so cute, I've used it ever year since I got it on a variety of cards, its so, so easy to colour, all these are done with Zig Real Brush Pens and to make his snow sparkle I added some Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pen.

For the snowflake wreath on each card I used Altenew ink sets for the pink colourway I used the 'Cherry Blossom' ink cube collection, the purple colourway used the ink cube collection called 'Shades of Purple' and the green colourway was stamped using the 'Tropical Forest' ink cubes. I love how Altenew inks smooth out and the fact that the cube collections give you shades from light to dark of a colour to play with.

I used the 6" template and a 6" x 6" piece of card stock and first stamped the large snowflake and built up the designs and colours. I did some batch stampin I made 6 cards in all first I stamped all the large green snowflakes on two cards, switched to pink ink and again stamped another 2 cards, then the purple.

Then I started again with the next stamp and the next shade of ink so in essence I stamped each stamp on all the card bases before moving on to the next stamp and colour. Its much faster that way than to keep switching stamps to work on the first card. Think of it as a production line, doing it this way means you get through the stamping faster. 

Once all the stamping was complete I decided to use the embossing technique I did on the Evergreen & Pine Cone Wreath the other day, this time using an old Xcut A4 Embossing folder called Snowflake Pattern, I'm not sure if its still available as I've had it about 4 years now. I was initially going to put the wreath on a mat of Centura Pearl card, but realised I didn't have any light green.

Not to be perturbed I decided to use foiled card instead, the finished card photos don't show the colours of the foiled card very well, but the above photo does, yay for taking some along the way photos 😉 Once I'd matted everything and attached the wreath and mat to the card base, I had to decide what sentiment I wanted to use. The set comes with two sentiments "Be Jolly" and the "Warm Wishes" sentiment I decided to use.

I wanted to make the sentiments stand out a little so I cut some small rectangles of white card just bigger than the sentiment and stamped the sentiment in Onyx Black Versafine, then I used some of the darker coloured Altenew inks in each of the colourways and stamped small starry snowflakes around the sentiment.

After that I used an ink blending tool and 3 of my favourite shades of Distress Ink (Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet and Twisted Citron) and blended over the top of everything to make a solid panel.

I glued the bottom part of the snowman to the top of the sentiment then added 3D foam pads to both elements and added it to the centre of the card.

The final touch was to add some little iridescent gems to the centre of each large snowflake, the gems I used I discovered via Jennifer McGuire she uses them on projects they are by a lovely lady called Lucy Abrams who runs Little Things from Lucy Cards, she has some gorgeous sequin and gems mixes for cards and blends that work fabulously in shaker cards, and the kicker is she is UK based so no high shipping fees and waiting ages for the sparkly goodies to get to you.

Well that's all for this post, don't forget to tune in to Jen Krays's Build-A-Wreath Stamping Facebook Live tonight at 7pm (that's if you're reading this on the 20th October 2018) otherwise you'll have to catch it on a replay. I'll have some more cards to share with you tomorrow some dark and shiny, until then take care and thanks so much for stopping by😁