Holiday Catalogue Blog Hop

As we launch our 2013 Holiday Catalogue today, it's time for another ESAD Blog Hop!   Welcome if you've arrived here from Libby's blog, and of course if you are just starting from here too.

What is ESAD?

ESAD stands for "Extra Special Australasian Demonstrators" and it is an on-line group just for Australian and New Zealand Stampin' Up! demonstrators.  We love what we do & love to share with our customers, friends, and wonderful blog visitors. We also share what we love in our ESAD Demonstrator community, through swaps, challenges, sharing knowledge, ideas & friendship, and we're always there to help and support each other.  So if you are a Stampin' Up! demonstrator located in Australia or New Zealand, then please feel free to leave me a comment with your email address and I'll contact you with information on how to join our wonderful group.

For my project I have designed a fun Christmas Card that uses the Pop N Cut's card base and the Santa's List stampset and some watercolouring.  This card has a co-ordinating envelope, with the envelope liner created with the new Christmas DSP, Season of Style, and cut with the fabulous new Envelope Liners Framelits.

Seen close-up like this, my watercolouring isn't perfect, but it adds to the character, right!  I used Whisper White cardstock, as I wanted Santa's beard and furry suit to be a true white, rather than the cream of the watercolour paper.  So I stamped the Santa image in black StazOn ink and then mixed a drop of cherry cobbler ink refil with a drop of water on the top of my acrylic block to dilute the ink and then used the brush of my aquapainter to colour in.  I have found that mixing with water before beginning painting (rather than squeezing from the aquapainter as you go) gives a more even coverage of ink saturation.  I used Crumb Cake for "the list" and Blushing Bride for Santa's face, being careful not to colour his eyebrows, beard or spectacles.  I then did Santa's gloves in Basic Black and I coloured the background in Pool Party to add emphasis to the white of Santa's beard and fluffy sleeves.

And as if that wasn't cute enough, when you open the card, there is a wee surprise inside!  I used the dress form die, and trimmed away the dress to create a fireplace and chimney waiting for Santa to arrive, isn't this neat!

The greeting is from Christmas Messages, and I love this set for the variety of Christmas greetings it has that are perfect for both the inside and the outside of your cards.

I used the Season of Style DSP for the presents on the mantlepiece, and the bunting is created with scraps of the Old Olive and Cherry Cobbler textured cardstock.  The chimney too uses scraps of the Cherry Cobbler textured cardstock, roughly cut into "bricks" and sponged on the edges, and matted on a Soft Suede base.  For the wallpaper I used Venetian Romance DSP from the Annual Catalogue, and happily discovered that the reverse side to the Soft Suede wallpaper was orange speckles, just perfect for inside a fireplace.  For the fire I cut zig-zags onto scraps of Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango and Daffodil Delight cardstock, sponged the edges and popped them up on dimensionals to give some depth.

Then I decided that this card needed a matching Gift Card Holder, so I again used the Pop N Cuts card base to make a card holder, this time with the Old Olive Textured Cardstock, and I created a belly band with a belly band using Polka Dot parade DSP in Old Olive, and topped it off with a bow from the new Gift Bow Bigz Die using the co-ordinating DSP to the Santa card.  I also added some Season of Style Washi Tape to the tag, which is cut using the Chalk Talk Framelits and stamped from the Christmas Messages stampset again, this time in Old Olive ink.

This is with the belly band taken off so you can see inside the card-holder - my husband informed me that this photo was necessary, even though I haven't yet decorated the inside, or filled it with a gift!!!!

You can see that I created a tab to help pull the belly band off, and also to hold its position at the correct level when it is in place on the holder, and this also has some of the washi tape on it (and just quietly there is another bow to come in my next post, which also features the washi tape and some more christmas tags using the new silver foil cardstock and silver ribbon - stay tuned!).

I hope you've enjoyed these holiday projects.  The next stop on the hop is my wonderful Team Leader Sharlene Meyer, so enjoy what she has put together for you!

All of the products used here can be purchased at www.emilycampbell.stampinup.net   The new Holiday Catalogue, which starts TODAY, is available for download here or by clicking on the picture.  Thanks for visiting!