AWH Heart of Christmas #1

Heart of Christmas Blog Hop: Happiness Abounds & Merriest Moments

Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the first Art with Heart Team Heart of Christmas Blog Hop for 2022. It's hard to believe we are half way through the year.

So glad you are joining us for our first 2022 Heart of Christmas Blog Hop. I know some people are thinking - its too early to focus on Christmas. For me, it's a great time to start so I don't have pressure to create cards on top of other Christmas preparations in December. I have enjoyed creating a card using both Christmas and non Christmas products. Here it is:

Apart from Christmas in July, this month is also watercolour month so I am planning to use a range of watercolour techniques throughout the month. This project used watercolour to colour the gorgeous Happiness Abounds flowers with Cherry Cobbler Classic ink.  I watched Emma Goddard, a UK SU Demonstrator, this morning stamp in Stampin' Up!s Classic ink and then use a Water Painter to pull the ink from the stamped lines to colour the flowers and leaves. Its a while since I have used this technique so thought I would give it a go for my card. My Cherry Cobbler Classic ink pad was not really juicy so the initial colouring was fairly soft. To gain greater depth of colour I added some extra Cherry Cobbler with my fine Water Painter. I love the effect of watercolour with this colour.

I took my colour scheme from the a selection of the Lights Aglow Suite. It is a beautiful, beautiful suite and the speciality papers are so gorgeous. I used the Lights Aglow Speciality DSP - it is amazing with gold added to many of the designs. For this card I chose a simpler "B" side design in Evening Evergreen. It was mounted directly to an Evening Evergreen card base.

Two Shimmery White card-stock frames were cut using the Merriest Frames Hybrid dies/embossing folder and they were coloured with Soft Succulent ink using a Blending Brush. All the edges were cut off and layered over the centre section of the background. The flowers were arranged then adhered in place with Dimensionals. White Glittered Organdy & Simply Elegant Trim bows were tucked under the flowers and adhered with Glue Dots.

A sentiment from the Merriest Moments stamp set was white heat embossed onto Cherry Cobbler card-stock. The card design was finished with some delightful Festive Pearls (NB they are called Red and Green Adhesive-Backed Pearls on the packet).

A Basic White card inner had 2 thin left over strips of the same SDSP added to the sides. A Basic White C6 Envelope was stamped with one of the flowers in Cherry Cobbler ink. Just simple touches to tie the card card inner and envelope together.

Thank you so much for spending time with me on my blog. I'm so glad you joined us for our first Heart of Christmas Blog Hop for 2022. We will be back every Monday until the end of November, going live at 8.00pm AEST.

It is always a delight to see everyone's creations and I am sure there will be gorgeous Christmas projects on show so don't miss checking out each blog. To continue with the blog hop, click on the "onto the next" graphic below to be taken to the blog of the lovely Caroline Manwaring. I always look forward to checking out Caroline's creations together with everyone else's. 

Don't forget the weekly Colour Creations Blog Hop by the Art with Heart Team that launches every Wednesday at 8.00pm AEST. 

Stay well, stay safe and be kind to yourself and others.

Andrea XXX

If at any time you find a broken link and the next blog doesn’t come up or you started part way through, please head to the blog of our Heart of Christmas Blog Hop Host, the very special Sharon Davern, and she will have the list of all Art With Heart Team members who are participating in this blog hop. Check out her beautiful creation while you are there.

If you are in Australia, don't already have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and would like your own copy of Stampin' Up's 2022-2023 Annual Catalogue and or the July - December Mini Catalogue then let me know and I will be delighted to send them to you. Pease don't hesitate to contact me with any other queries about these projects or Stampin' Up!. 

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