Bah! Humbug! Challenge #10

The theme for this week's Challenge is 'Apertures' which seems a perfect occasion to use a pair of stamps I bought at a big craft show in Toronto, Canada, about four years ago and, I'm ashamed to say, have inked only once to stamp them in my catalogue. The resulting card was much quicker and easier to make than I feared. The snowy village scene was stamped straight onto a white card blank and coloured with dry watercolour pencils. The windows were stamped on a piece of green card the same size, cut out and a sheet of acetate stuck on the back. One of the bottom corners was a bit ragged so I applied a little Polar White Flowersoft on the acetate to be snow on the window sills - I don't know how I would have disguised ragged corners at the top but I was lucky! I then cut a strip of card 4cm wide and scored 3 vertical lines, accordian folded them and cut the strip in half. I stuck a piece to each side of the front, attached them to the snow scene and there you are: a view through the windows! A silver peel off border and greeting completed the front....and I wondered why it had taken me so long to use those stamps. Although they are by a Canadian company and may not be readily available in the UK it would be easy enough to cut similar windows freehand to go with any scenic background. The folded strips between the front panel and the scene mean that the card will squash flat to go in an envelope, but when extracted the windows stand proud like the proscenium arch on a stage.

When buying peel offs you may have seen big white sheets of geometric shapes and wondered what they are for. This card was made by punching three square apertures and sticking matching peel off frames with clear centres on the front (I use waxed paper such as the carrier sheet from labels inside the card to protect the back surface). Inside I sprinkled ultrafine holographic glitter on the sticky surface of the centres; on the outside I added small peel off motifs and coloured with appropriate pens. I stuck the edges of the insert sheet all round on the lefthand side so the glitter wouldn't rub off.

It's many years since I used this wreath stamp by PSX and having made the card I remembered why! Nothing wrong with the stamp, it's all that cutting..... I stamped it on white card with Versamark, embossed with silver EP, coloured it with Promarkers and cut it out (memo to Self: new decoupage snips are needed urgently!) The card was covered with green paper embossed with the Cuttlebug folder 'Holly Ribbons', the aperture cut with a Nestabilities Classic Circle die and the wreath stuck down overlapping the edge. The sentiment was stamped on the inside - I traced lightly the inner edge of the wreath to position it properly - and the only minor problem is that the back of the leaves show on the inside of the aperture and, because the Promarkers bleed through, it looks a bit untidy. If I make another I shall cut the wreath out double and then stick the clean copy on the back after colouring and before assembly.