Vintage Dasher Christmas card

Hi blogging friends

I am almost over my wretched cold (thank goodness!) and I am really now just tired and lacking energy.  We had some wonderful visitors over the weekend:  on Saturday, my American sister-in-law and her grown-up son (they reside in Australia but in another State so we don't catch up very often and they were on a stopover in Melbourne on the way home from the USA). My sister-in-law has always been a HUGE supporter of my cardmaking and a couple of years ago suggested that I start a blog to showcase my cards.   

On Sunday, my gorgeous friend Y and her 12 year old son from Brisbane visited for a couple of hours after lunch.  Y is the one who first introduced me to lots of different crafts:  dried flower arranging, then decorative painting and then cardmaking.  I never had any confidence with my crafting abilities and in fact, I didn't think I had a creative bone in my body until I met Y - but she was so encouraging and enthusiastic that my confidence slowly grew.  Y is one of those people that even when you don't see each other often, when you catch up, you just pick up where you left off.

And of course, when you are with people whom you love dearly and get on so well with, the time always passes far too quickly - and when they leave, there seems to be a void

So what card am I sharing today?  It's another Christmas card!  Yep:  I have the Christmas-cardmaking-bug and there is nothing I love more than rifling through my Christmas stash finding things I have forgotten about - a great journey of discovery...fun...fun....fun :-)

One of my all-time favourite Stampin' Up Christmas stamps is:  Dasher.  I love Dasher because the image is so versatile and lends itself to many different styles of card whether clean and simple or layered - and today, I am sharing my vintage-inspired version.  I am a little crazy about Vintage Christmas images at the moment so I have a few projects on the go and lots of ideas running through my head and my Craft Room is in total chaos LOL!

I stamped Dasher onto cream cardstock using Stampin' Up Crumb Cake ink and then after diecutting and layering the image panel onto crimson cardstock, I heavily distressed the panel using Ranger Antique Linen Distress ink and my Ranger Blending Tool.  I added some Kaisercraft blue-grey rhinestones and Bo Bunny burgundy rhinestones to Dasher's antlers.

The designer paper is really old - Cosmo Cricket:  Oh Joy (I used both sides of the paper) which I bought quite a few years ago now when I was required to make some Vintage Christmas cards for Fat Cat's Card Corner (I was on their DT).  Thankfully, there are lots of Vintage Christmas papers around these days that you could substitute and Kaisercraft has had some gorgeous Vintage papers out the last couple of years eg: Just Believe  - and of course, Graphic 45 has some amazing papers too, just to name a few.  I heavily distressed the card base/papers using Antique Linen ink.

I dyed/aged the cream lace using a tea bag and then tied on some rusty bells (and they even jingle!) using some twine.  As is my usual practice, I added the lace in 2 separate elements and glued the knotted part on using Fabric glue (it's just neater that way for me!) - and I added Fray Stop to the cut ends to stop them from fraying.

I added an Imaginisce brad to the bottom right-hand side which is from their Snowy Joe Brad Collection.  I received this set of brads free with an order from an online store and I suspect they are l-o-n-g retired.  It was just pure luck that the colours on this brad matched really well with my card (LOVE it when that happens!).

Lastly, I attached my decorated card front to a cream cardstock base.

Finished size is:  5-3/4" x 4-1/8" or 146mm x 105mm.

Challenges:

I am entering my card in the following challenges -

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - July - Anything Goes

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Jocelyn


Card Recipe:

Stamps:  Stampin' Up Dasher (retired)

Ink:  Stampin' Up Crumb Cake, Ranger Antique Linen Distress Ink

Designer paper:  Cosmo Cricket Oh Joy - Frosty 12" x 12" (retired)

Accessories:  Hero Arts Lace Ribbon CH231 (tea dyed by me), fabric glue, Bo Bunny 'Father Christmas' jewels (burgundy rhinestones) JFC497, Kaisercraft rhinestones Blue-Grey RS406, Big Shot, Lifestyle Nesting Circle and Nesting Scallop Circle dies, Ranger Blending Tool, Pickadoll PT-1550 1cm rusty jingle bells, Darice hemp cord (to tie on bells), Imaginisce Snowball brads - Snowy Joe Collection (retired), Fray Stop, cardstock - Bazzill Basics Crimson, Paper Mill cream