Christmas Cards 2012

I was out at the craft store one day and discovered a sentiment stamp that almost brought tears to my eyes and made me giddy at the same time.

"The best gift of Christmas arrived in a very small bundle with no bow"

It was the perfect Christmas card sentiment in beautiful script. 

So I had an idea for a Christmas card and little in the way of design. I began by coloring some child pageant stamps I bought on clearance early in the year. Then I received the perfect die in my Amazing Grace kit to place Mary and Joseph with a nice filigree stamp that matched. I inked Mary and Joseph's oval in antique linen and spun sugar distress inks. The background paper is Basic Gray Nordic Christmas with some white enamel accents. 

The baby Jesus stamp fit perfectly in the motif from Spellbinders Ironworks accents. He is inked with spruce and forest moss. Then I spun the edges of the die across Versamark embossing ink quickly to obtain a random coating. (In case you are tempted the distress ink tool wont behave with embossing ink to feather in the ink on the edges.) The die was then spun gingerly through a shallow dredge of gold tinsel embossing powder and heated. 

The back of the baby Jesus ornament and the tag are sprayed with a heavy concentration of gold perfect pearls on kraft paper. Once heat dried I stamped and embossed in clear. I used fired brick and spruce distressed inks with clear embossing powder. I didn't post before on the cards because I wanted the recipients to start receiving them as surprises. :)