AWH Heart of Christmas Blog Hop #15

Christmas with Yuletide Village

Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the fifteenth Art with Heart Heart of Christmas Blog Hop for 2024. This year we have been blog hopping since August and only have another 2 Blog Hops before we finish for this year. I hope you can check us out each week as there will be a many of ideas and different projects on display.

I love creating and sharing Christmas creativity with you. This week sees the culmination of 2 ideas I wanted to try out. I have wanted to use the Yuletide Village stamps for a more “Aussie feel” Christmas card, ie no snow but rather blue skies and colour. I also wanted to  follow-up on a different version of a fun fold shown by Sue Campfield, a USA Demonstrator. A few weeks ago I created a fancy fold that Sue had shown for her Crafternoon. At that time she also showed a number of variations of that fold, including a fold with 3 decorated diamond panels. She didn’t provide any dimensions so I needed to work out dimensions based on our A4 sizing. Here is my Aussie Christmas card:

A side view of the card gives a better view of the overall township created by the 3 diamond panels, but firstly, here are photos of each of the individual panels. The photo below is of the back panel.

Here is the middle panel:

And here is the front panel:

Two pieces of Soft Sea Foam card-stock was cut and scored with the 2 pieces being adhered together. Three hills and 2 valleys were created for the base. Three square panels also were cut from Soft Sea Foam card-stock, with the 2nd panel a little smaller that the back diamond and the front square diamond a little smaller again. Three Basic White card-stock panels were cut 2mm smaller than the Soft Sea Foam squares. Here is a side view to show the 3 “hills”.

Some Thoughtful Journey Designer Series Paper was used to decorate the 3 downward sections of the card base.

All of the buildings from the Yuletide Village stamp set were Gold heat embossed onto Basic White card-stock. The images were coloured with Stampin’ Blends Combos. Colours were selected to coordinate with the DSP, including Wild Wheat for the roofs. Each building was coloured differently, including Fresh Freesia, Petal Pink, Calypso Coral, Balmy Blue and Bubble Bath combos. Light Lemon Lolly was used to colour some windows and Light Pool Party to other windows to give a sense of a light shining inside or just indicating a glass window. Soft Sea Foam coloured the grass near the buildings. Each tree was coloured to coordinate with the building(s) and the specific DSP, eg Mossy Meadows and Old Olive; Pretty Peacock and Lost Lagoon; and Shaded Spruce and Soft Sea Foam. The Colour Lifter was used to add highlights throughout. As you can see there were many Blends colours used. As this is a stand alone stamp set, the coloured images were fussy cut with my Stampin’ Snips.

Each panel had some Balmy Blue Classic Stampin’ ink blended at the top for blue sky. There was some splattering added with a Pretty Peacock Stampin’ Write Marker and white splatters with White Craft ink. The small stand of trees from the Peaceful Evergreens stamps was used to stamp some trees in the background of each diamond panel. Again, each panel had the trees stamped in a different colour as the DSP and building colours were different. The trees were either stamped in Mossy Meadows, Pretty Peacock or Shaded Spruce inks.

A sentiment from the Peaceful Season stamp set was gold heat embossed onto Soft Sea Foam card-stock, before being trimmed and cut into two. A double bow was tied in Gold Twisted Thread and it was ticked under the sentiment. Some gorgeous Iridescent Foil Gems added some shimmer on each panel.

Inside the back fold of the card, a Basic White panel was added that had been Gold heat embossed using a sentiment from the Merriest Trees stamp set. A extra house was fussy cut and adhered on the panel at the bottom.  

This fancy fold card was designed to fit into a standard C6 Basic White envelope. The envelope was gold heat embossed with one of the buildings from the Yuletide Village stamps.

Thank you so much for calling in on your way around this week’s Heart of Christmas Blog Hop. I appreciate you dropping by.

There is more Christmas creativity, so do continue with the blog hop. Just click on the "next" graphic below to be taken to the blog of a gorgeous person and my up-line, Kathryn Mangelsdorf. I love it when Kathryn is able to join us and look forward to checking out her creation(s). I do love seeing everyone’s' projects - there is so much inspiration.

Also, many of us participate in the Colour Creations Blog Hop that goes live every Wednesday night where we showcase one of Stampin’ Up!s colours each week. We would love you to also check in on us for more creative inspiration.

Stay well, stay safe and be kind to yourself.

Andrea 💕🐾

If you find a broken link or would like to view the full list of participants 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 Stampin' Up 2023-2024 Annual Catalogue and or the September-December 2024 Mini Catalogue, then let me know and I will be delighted to send them to you.  Please don't hesitate to make contact re any queries about these projects or Stampin' Up!. 

#heartofchristmas  #heartofchristmas2024 #stampinup #stampinupaustralia #stampinupsouthpacific #stampinupdemo  #handmadecards #stampinupdemonstrator #papercrafting #artwithheartteam  #papercrafter  #valleyinspirations   #yuletidevillage  #peacefulevergreens  #peacefulseason  #merriesttrees