Clean and Simple Kate's Snowflake Christmas cards

Hi blogging friends

Today I am sharing some Clean and Simple Christmas cards using my favourite snowflake die:  Kate's Snowflake by Simon Says Stamp and a new embossing folder I picked up at a Craft Show in October.

These cards are also my entry for the following challenges:

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - November - Anything Goes
Crafty Catz Challenge #255 - Christmas is coming

The embossing folder is by Nellie Snellen - Christmas Round and was just the right size for the snowflake die to fit inside - yay!

On Jennifer Maguire's blog, I had seen Jennifer diecut things then heat-emboss them and thought I would give it a try - and it worked really, really well.

For the gold snowflake:  I smooched the diecut snowflake very thoroughly with Versamark Watermark ink and poured on Ranger fine detail Gold embossing powder and picked it up very carefully with my closed-point tweezers and heat-set it.  As soon as the powder melted I poured on a 2nd coat of embossing powder and heat-set it.  You really do need two coats of the embossing powder to get really smooth coverage - one just doesn't look as good:

For the silver snowflake:  I used the same ink and did two coats of Ranger fine detail Silver embossing powder:

For the teal snowflake:  I inked the diecut with Colorbox Sapphire Silk pigment ink and did two coats of Polysparkle clear embossing powder:

I adhered the snowflakes to my white cardstock using Tombow Mono Multi glue which gave me a little bit of time to line up the points perfectly.  I cleaned up any stray bits of glue using my Xyron adhesive eraser.

I have also seen on Jennifer Maguire's blog how Jennifer had made matching embossed edges to her embossed diecuts so I did this same technique for the bottom matching borders.  All you have to do is take a scrap of white cardstock and apply the same ink that you use for your diecuts to one edge and heat-set with two coats of embossing powder then trimmed it to size.  Simple and quick!  I attached mine to the card base using doublesided tape. 

I tied on the twine/ribbon and added Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.  I glued the tails down with Tombow Mono Multi glue to hold them in place because they kept blowing in the wind when I was trying to photograph them! 

Lastly, I added rhinestones to the snowflake centres.  The gold gem came on a sheet of different coloured rhinestones from Bellbird Paper Arts which cost about $2.50 (Bellbird Paper Arts are located in Blackburn, Victoria).  The silver and teal rhinestones are by Kaisercraft.  I couldn't figure out where to put a sentiment so left it off.

Please note it is REALLY hard to photograph silver and gold so the snowflakes look a bit brighter in real life.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Teal Snowflake -

Stamps:  None

Ink:  Colorbox Sapphire Silk pigment

Dies:  Simon Says Stamp Kate's Snowflake SSSD111309

Accessories:  Big Shot, Nellie Snellen Christmas Round-1 EFE003 embossing folder, Tombow Mono Multi glue, doublesided tape, Polysparkle embossing powder, heat-gun, Fray Stop, blue sparkle ribbon, Kaisercraft Ice Blue rhinestone (SB774) white cardstock

Gold Snowflake -

Stamps:  None

Ink:  Versamark Watermark

Dies:  Simon Says Stamp Kate's Snowflake SSSD111309

Accessories:  Big Shot, Nellie Snellen Christmas Round-1 EFE003 embossing folder, Tombow Mono Multi glue, doublesided tape, Fray Stop, gold cord, Gold gem (Bellbird Paper Arts), heat-gun, Ranger fine detail Gold embossing powder, white cardstock

Silver Snowflake -

Stamps:  None

Ink:  Versamark Watermark

Dies:  Simon Says Stamp Kate's Snowflake SSSD111309

Accessories:  Big Shot, Nellie Snellen Christmas Round-1 EFE003 embossing folder, Tombow Mono Multi glue, doublesided tape, Fray Stop, silver cord, Kaisercraft Silver rhinestone, heat-gun, Ranger fine detail Silver embossing powder, white cardstock