Lit Up Christmas Cactus

Hey there, fellow crafters! How are we all doing? It's been a good week so far for me, we actually are having a mini cool front! Have to share this as an example of how dense I am sometimes: Awhile after making this card, I finally remembered I had those blending brushes now and I could have used those instead of my long-suffering sponge finger daubers! And on the card before that one! Dang it, I'm such a creature of habit, lol. I do have a Sunny Santa / Caribbean Christmas card in the planning pipeline, so I may just attempt another distress ink blended ombre' background for it using my new toys, er um, tools. :-)

I was wanting to do a Christmas card this month that included a tree. I'd never inked up this cute North Coast Creations cactus stamp set, so my choice was made. Again, I've used only one stamp set to make my card (except for the images inside the card) and I used VersaFine Clair Noctune ink for all but the front sentiment which was stamped in VersaMark. The cactus was clear-heat-embossed. This card has a fun fold - I like to call it a split-level card. The front is an inch shorter than the back width-wise.

 

I used this current Sketch Saturday map as inspiration, but also went my own way a bit. It seems like I ended up using more than my usual share of dies on this card: Stamps of Life Stitched Rectangles, MFT Photo Corners, IO Christmas Lights String, Spellbinders Matting Basics. 

This card should really be called Christmas CATicus because it truly had close to 9 lives, each one a near-death experience surviving my many mess ups! The first thing I did wrong was to adhere the siggie to the front instead of the back, which meant I then had to switch up everything going forward.

Then, after cutting the front a bit lengthwise to make it split-level, I changed my mind and thought I was cutting the back to even it up. But I cut more off the front! Hahaha, yes, I stupidly cut the bottom off the wrong side. I stopped myself from cutting any more! And the stitched rectangle mats ended up being way bigger than I thought they were going to be, even after measuring. {smh} 

Oh, and when I went to heat-emboss the front sentiment after stamping it in VersaMark, I poured clear ep over it instead of the Lemon Yellow embossing powder so I had to cut another mat for that. Just seems like everything I touched on this card had to be corrected or covered up somehow, lol. Frankly, I'm pretty darn proud it survived in a presentable manner! 

On the inside, I stamped everything a bit too far to the left (another mess up), so I hunted through my Christmas stamps to find some accents to stamp around the sentiments to try and make it all look more centered, settling on a few Sugarloaf images that I colored with my trusty old Zig Writers because it's pigment ink and will show opaque over colored paper and are permanent when dry. I colored the milk with a white colored pencil.

As I said, the back was originally the front, which is why it has a purple SU mat under the American Traditional Designs patterned light string paper. I added the photo corners from snippets of the purple card stock to frame the the Lawn Fawn siggie mat that began all my troubles, lol. 

I stamped the cactus on the same card stock as the card base, which is a double-sided heavy patterned card stock from My Mind's Eye's Wild Asparagus line of many moons ago. I used the entire 12x12 sheet with this card. One side is the green solid, the other the polka dots. I colored the strung lights and accented the cactus with my ProMarkers. I stamped the container on white card stock and colored with ProMarkers. Then I fussy cut both out and paper-pieced them back together. All this so that the container wasn't on green paper. I coated each bulb first with Smooth Glitz sparkle ink, and then once that dried some Glossy Accents.

The larger IO bulbs and string dies were all cut with white card stock. The string colored with a ProMarker, the bulbs colored with Smooch ink, then Smooch Glitz, then Glossy Accents. The smaller bulbs and string on the siggie of the back of the card were colored with ProMarkers and the bulbs were coated with Smooch Glitz and Glossy Accents.

 On the front background are stash strips of the purple SU card stock adhered as a frame. The matted horizontal and vertical elements of the sketch are the Stamps of Life stitched rectangle dies. I added an MFT photo corner die to the bottom right corner to balance all the purple on the left. 

And one final look. Like I said, I'm pretty jazzed that it survived looking this good! I'm keeping it and on to the next one because it's Christmas in July! lol

CHALLENGES:

1.  Sketch Saturday #573 - Sketch is shown, above.

2.  Sparkles Christmas #102: Include a Tree

3.  Christmas with the Cuties #29: Going Green

4.  Split Coast Stampers 2019 Christmas Challenge: August Christmas Tree

5.  Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge #447: ACG + Opt. Die Cut or Punch - I've played the option and have used several die cuts, listed above in my commentary.

6.  Happy Little Stampers July Challenge: ACG + Opt. Sparkle - I've played the option and have lots of sparkle, described in my commentary above.  

7.  Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes with Dies July Challenge: Ag with Dies  

8.  Outlawz Festive Fridays July 12-26: Christmas theme

9.  Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper Challenge July: AG with PP

10.  Stamplorations Theme and Sketch Summer Challenge: AG + Stamps  

11.  Colour Crazy Week 28: AG with Colouring - I coloured with ProMarkers and Smooch Ink.

12.  Crafty Creations #395: Always AG

13.  Scrapping 4 Fun #145: Tic-Tac-Toe - I chose middle row across (Die Cuts / Pattern Paper / Blue or Green).

14.  Outlawz Crash Your Stash July 15 - Aug 14: Photo Corners

15.  YSBP July Challenge: Always AG

16.  Bugaboo Christmas in July Day 1: Movie Theme - I chose Charlie Brown's Christmas because my cactus tree reminds me of his poor little tree. :-)  

Thanks so much for coming by to see what I'm up to! Until next time, Stay Crafty! XOX