AWH Heart of Christmas #5

Christmas with O Holy Night (Night Divine/Stars at Night)

Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the Art with Heart Heart of Christmas Blog Hop.

This week I am showcasing the O Holy Night Suite for a few simple-ish Christmas cards. My cards were inspired by the new September-December Mini Catalogue. One of the suites  includes some amazing O Holy Night Designer Series Paper, where some of the designs of the DSP are scenic and can be used as backdrops for the wonderful stamps and dies. There are 2 stamp and die bundles, ie Night Divine & Stars at Night where they feature great Christmas sentiments, Nativity dies and star dies. As we often want numerous handmade cards to fulfil our Christmas Card List I thought I would create some simpler cards with the scenic O Holy Night DSP. This DSP can do much of the work.

The background DSP has been adhered directly to the card bases, with die cut pieces adhered directly and with Dimensionals/Mini Dimensionals.

As mentioned, I was inspired by projects in the new Mini Catalogue which will be live in a couple of days on 6 September 2023. While I didn’t try to copy, these projects are similar to some of the projects in the catalogue with little differences. I wanted to remind everyone that the Stampin’ Up! catalogues are brilliant for inspiring your creativity. I was speaking with folk recently who had forgotten to check out the catalogues when they felt devoid of inspiration. The catalogues are wonderful to be inspired by colour combinations, layouts, techniques or specifically by stamps and dies.

The sentiments have all come from the Night Divine stamp set, with a couple heat embossed onto separate card-stock and one (see below) heat embossed directly onto the DSP.  With the card below, I roughly positioned the various pieces before stamping the DSP with Versamark ink and heat embossing with Black Emboss Powder, the Embossing Additions Tool kit and a Heat Tool. All the pieces were then adhered in place. I thought the positioning would be ok but the sentiment is actually a little low. If I create a similar card again, I will ensure the sentiment is a little higher on the DSP panel.

The die cut nativity pieces were cut from either Basic Black or Pebble Path card-stocks. The card above uses both colours of die cut pieces with the main focus on Basic Black die cut nativity pieces. As Pebble Path is part of the background DSP, the die cut pieces didn’t show well, hence most of the pieces on the card above are cut from Basic Black card-stock. I couldn’t resist adding a touch of blending with one of Stampin’ Up!s wonderful Blending Brushes to add highlights with some White Craft ink. My hope was that it would be indicative of light shining from the stars or within the shelter. This adds texture and dimension to give the design life.

The photo above shows the stunning DSP with the card that was created featuring it.

The stars became a bit of a feature on my cards. I couldn’t resist die cutting using the Stars at Night dies to layer Gold Foil with More Dazzle Specialty Paper and Very Vanilla card-stock. A couple of the stars were finished with a gold Adhesive Backed Star Trinket (they are oh so gorgeous) and the third card with Brushed Metallic Adhesive-backed Dots. The Stars at Night dies can be used in multiple ways to create gorgeous stars. They are amazing.

Card inners were created with panels of Very Vanilla card-stock with left over strips of the DSP from the card front adhered down the side. The star stamp from the Stars at Night stamp set was 2nd generation stamped in coordinating colours. Very Vanilla C6 envelopes were stamped in a similar way.

Thank you so much from dropping in to check out my O Holy Night cards. I do appreciate you spending time with me.

There is more Christmas creativity, so continue on with the blog hop. Just click the "next" graphic below to be taken to the blog of the lovely Theresa Gerrard. I am looking forward to checking out Theresa’s creation(s). I do love seeing everyones' projects - there is always so much inspiration.

I do hope to see you next week as we continue the weekly Heart of Christmas 2023 Blog Hop series. Also, don’t miss the Colour Creations Blog Hop where we will be going live this coming Wednesday evening to feature Crumb Cake - a wonderfully versatile neutral.

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

Andrea 💕🐾

If you find a broken link or would like to view the full list of participants then go to Sharon Davern’s blog @ Rhapsody in Craft. Sharon is our wonderful Art With Heart Team Heart of Christmas Coordinator.  She is a special lady. Check out her delightful creation while you are there.

If you live in Australia, don't already have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and would like your own copy of the new Stampin' Up 2023-2024 Annual Catalogue and or the new Stampin’  Up! Sept-Dec Mini Catalogue, then let me know and I will be delighted to send them to you.  Please don't hesitate to make contact with any other queries about this project or Stampin' Up!. 

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