The Christmas Star

Here we are the Saturday before Thanksgiving.... Christmas music is playing everywhere.  most of the towns have their holiday lighting up ready to power it on after the town parades, and we crafters are busy bees making our handmade Christmas cards wondering again this year....why didn't I start earlier??? 

I'm posting today with the All Dressed Up Design Team as we reshare this month's new images again with more new ideas for your cards.  The new images for this month were Gingerbread House, Fairy Snowflake and Baubles & Tinsel.  For my design team card, I selected Baubles & Tinsel and here's the Christmas card I made to add to my 2025 stash. 

 

I make a lot of ornaments each year and have mostly handmade ornaments on my tree.  You can image how thrilled I was to receive Baubles & Tinsel for my design team image!  After sizing her for an A2 card, I used my Copic markers for coloring and then carefully fussy cut around her leaving the tiny white border.  

I had several die cut mats on my desk from other Christmas cards projects and thought she fit well on the Gina Marie Frilly Lace Nested Rectangle Die piece that I found.  Next I found a 3" x 8" red cardstock strip that I had previously dry embossed using the Spellbinders Vintage Ornaments 3D Embossing Folder.  I had used gold pigment ink across the highlights, but it needed a bit more.  I added another coat of the ink and let that dry over night.

I could see that if I wanted to use the border and the Frilly Lace piece I needed a larger card base.  I selected a 6" white side fold card base and added the deep burgundy mat to the card base front.  Luckily I was able to trim the embossed strip so that a full ornament was intact to use on the right side of the card.  

As I was shifting the pieces around to find the right layout I could see the white edge that I left around the image was too stark of a contrast against the vintage ivory mat.  To correct this, I simply took several of the lighter 'E' Series of Copics and colored the edge.  Also after deciding that the tree was going to overlap over the embossed strip I added a layer of foam under that section of the tree to allow it to have the needed 3D effect. 

I secured the ivory rectangle mat first leaving about 1/2" border to the right edge.  Next I added the embossed strip on the left, positioning it about the same 1/2" from the left card base edge.  I then placed the colored image in the center of the card front, ensuring about the same area was left open on each side from the special papers to the edge of the card.  I added the single ornament next, near the bottom corner of the rectangular mat.   I added the tiny strip sentiment, 'the Christmas Star' to the top of the single ornament with a tiny strip of the same burgundy paper.

I still felt like the gold wasn't light or shiny enough for this card design.  I used a gold metallic pen and carefully traced over the embossed design of all the ornaments.  I also took Crystal Stickles and drew around the edge of the tree to add a bit of sparkle there and complete the design. 

This one took quiet a while to put together but the results far outweighed the time and effort.  It's truly a beautiful card and image drawn by Wendy Burns.

Thank you for stopping by to see what I've been coloring.  I hope you'll visit the All Dressed Up Blog to see the other designer's cards and to also enter your ADU cards in the challenge. 

Pam's Pearls

I will be entering this card in the following challenges: 

C.R.A.F.T. Challenge ~ Challenge 768 ~ Christmas  

Passion for Markers ~ Challenge 815 ~ Christmas  

Creatalicious ~ November Challenge #29  

Copics 

Girl ~ Hair: E41, E42, E43, Dress: V91, V93, V95, Stockings: BG70, BG72, Tree: G63, G27, G46, E71, Bucket: BG11, BG15, Heart: R17, Ornaments: Y18, R57, BG13, R59, B05, RV17, C2, Star: Y18, Top Gift: V20, V22, V25, Bottom Gift: B16, RV02, Shadow W3

Products

All Dressed Up, Baubles & Tinsel

Spellbinders, Vintage Ornaments Embossing Folder

Gina Marie Designs, Frilly Lace Rectangle Die