Twinkling Christmas Lights

Inspiration: SUO Challenge #209 (Holiday Catalogue) + Clean & Simple Sketch #93 + ColourQ #266

I wanted to use the Making Christmas Bright stamp set and pick something colorful, so I went looking at old ColourQ challenges for inspiration. Combo #266 caught my attention, and I picked current colors to recreate a similar look, pairing Shaded Spruce, Poppy Parade, Granny Apple Green and Mango Melody. The result is unexpected and a little bit retro, which goes with the big bulb Christmas lights perfectly.

The design is quite simple: I stamped the strings in Shaded Spruce, stamped the Christmas bulbs in all four colour on a strip of white cardstock and punched the lights out with the matching punch. Using a strip of cardstock will make your life easier when punching, and you will have less waste - the punch has two pieces on it, since you can make the top a different colour. While this is a cool feature, it can also produce a lot of little pieces if you're cutting through a regular cardstock sheet. The cardstock strip solves that problem.

I added the curly strings of lights in Granny Apple Green ink to fill the rest of the space. Then, I started gluing the top row of lights and used the Craft Whisper White ink to stamp the light glow at the bottom of each bulb. I make sure to do that before gluing the bottom row or lights, which would have been in the way of the stamping. I added the glow at the bottom of those as well.

The sentiment was stamped in Pumpkin Pie ink. It's not part of the colour combo, but it pairs really nicely with the Mango Melody cardstock as it is just a shade darker. It made the sentiment easier to read than if I had used tone-on-tone ink. The last embellishments was the part where I flip-flopped for a while. I didn't think I had current buttons to fill in the space, so I went looking through my current dies to see what could work. When I spotted the retro-looking stars in the Santa's Signpost Framelits set, I thought it could fit the card well. I wasn't sure what to cut the stars out of, but finally opted for Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper. I was still unsure, so I looked at embellishments, I spotted the tinted faceted buttons, and all three colors were going with my color scheme really nicely, so I started going back and forth between ideas. I finally tried topping the little stars with Glitter Enamel Dots and when I did, it made the whole card feel more complete, so I stuck with this idea and I'm happy with the final result. The Dazzling Diamonds glimmer paper also ties in with the white glow around the lights, so it works.

 

 

 

    

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies
Stamps: Illuminez les Fêtes (Making Christmas Bright)
Cardstock: Poppy Parade, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green, Shaded Spruce, Whisper White,
Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper
Ink: Poppy Parade, Mango Melody, Granny Apple Green, Shaded Spruce,
Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White
Accessories: Christmas Bulb Builder Punch, Glitter Enamel Dots, White Medium Envelope

 

Comments

[Cindy B Designs]

Great card and so much colorful fun! Thank you so much for participating at SUOChallenges.com for our Holiday Catalog challenge. Our new challenge is going up on October 23, 2018, and we hope to see you again!

[Natasha Trupp]

Love this! You have a such a wonderful style! I've really been enjoying many of your takes using SU with my sketches. I started out stamping with SU, and it's just a happy reminder :)

[Julia Quinn]

Great second card too!! Love these colours together. Perfect for our challenge using the Holiday Catalogue. So glad you joined in the fun with us at SUO Challenges.