The Details
Where did it come from
Cardmaking & Papercraft Issue 175
When did I get it
30th September 2017
When did I try it
12th October 2017
First quick impression
Hurray, it is a Hunkydory style card kit! I am in my comfort zone, I love the vintage artwork that is right up my street too if I can’t come up with a good set of cards easily with this one there is something very wrong with me.
Well, it is a couple of months since I last had a kit to test that didn’t contain stamps, dies or an embossing folder. As there was nothing to test first with this kit so I just jumped right in there creating. When I have a set like this I like to pop out all the elements first so that I can play around with ideas. This is something I have developed over time. When I first started crafting I used to chose what to use and just pop them out and leave the rest of the toppers in the background sheet. One of the things I have been doing as part of the big declutter project is to remove all the part used sheets and pop the toppers out so I have a set of go-to images to use.
The first Card
Guess what? The first card I made was 8″ x 8″ I’m so predictable aren’t I (this time I used Ivory and not white), I promise I will be doing some more adventurous card shapes soon I need to make the most of my Adorable Scoreboard and the Adorable Scoreboard Handbook. I have only used it to create one card blank so far – which was amazing and better than any of the Cardcraft UK Card Blanks I have bought if I am honest. It’s just so easy to grab a card blank, isn’t it? For this card, I cut the checked paper to 19cm squared on my Cutterpillar Pro and then remembered that I had some 8″ x 8″ Hunkydory Mirri Card so I trimmed this down to 19.5 cm square because I like to have a small border of card blank showing around the edge. If like me you like creating 8″ by 8″ cards I really recommend getting some Mirror card of the same size rather than keeping cutting A4 down. Although I use the edges up as best as possible it does work out more wasteful than having correctly sized Mirror Card. I had a piece of ribbon in my stash that came off some packaging, I really can’t remember if it was food, toiletries or clothing but the colour worked perfectly with the card colours so I made use of this and wrapped it around the check card and fastened it to the back with acid free tape. I then glued the paper to the Mirri Card and the Mirri to the Card Blank with Collall All Purpose Glue, I love having some wiggle time! The feature image and the lower sentiment were attached with sticky foam pads for a bit of a pop. I used a sentiment from the Hunkydory Christmas Insert Collection stamps and stamped this onto the tag in Black Ranger Archival Ink with my Tonic Stamping Platform and after it dried I used my Sticky Mitts Glue to stick it under the ribbon. This was the first outing for the Sticky Mitts and I think it seemed to hold fast quicker than the Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue I usually use for precision sticking. To finish the card off I used some Habico Signature Collection Gemstones in Aurora Borealis which I got this week from Hunkydory, they are gorgeous! Here is the completed card
The Second Card
For the second card, I changed it up a bit with a 7″ x 7″ Card Blank, still in Ivory from CardCraft UK. I chose the green polka dot background with the border design and cut this down to 16 cm x 16cm and again a piece of the Hunkydory Gold Mirri Card to 16.5 cm squared. I decided to do a really simple layout and fastened the focal image down with some Collall All Purpose and then layered the sentiment with foam pads. As the sentiment overlapped the image I used the taller pads to the right and used a stack of two thinner pads to the left which levelled the greeting across the differing heights. I decided to add some extra detail to the Ivy Berries in the image and went over some of them with White Gloss Nuvo Drops. I’ll confess I have loads of bottles of the drops but I am always too scared to use them on a project in case they come out different sizes and I revert to gem or pearl flat back gems a lot! I saw this as my golden opportunity to have a go because the Ivy berries are already different sizes and I had a shape to fill instead of guessing. I think I may have nearly stopped breathing holding my breath applying them but they are on and I am happy with the result. I just need to keep the card flat overnight so that they can set 100% and not get squished! I have to confess that I was sat on the fence for quite a while deciding whether I should add something else to the bottom right-hand corner but decided to go with the less is more approach for this one. Here is the second card:
The Verdict of the Christmas Greetings Collection
As expected I was able to make cards I am very happy with using this kit. The other great news is once I have used it all it will be gone. There is no decision to make as to whether I will be keeping it long term, fantastic news for the organisation project. If you have missed hearing about it I am currently completing a Midweek Minimise decluttering project to try and get my stash under some sort of control. You can see the posts about it here. I will no doubt be crafting away using the rest of the collection over the weekend and you will be able to see some more of the cards I make on the Pinterest board of my Cards.
Until next time,
Gentle Hugs,
Susan
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