Christmas Card Challenges #4: Anything Goes

Well I’m back after a technical hiatus…I didn’t get to post my card last week but I really enjoyed seeing all of your cards!  This week the Christmas Card Challenge was “Anything Goes” and I’m sharing the Christmas card I created for our local veterinarian.  We (and our pets) love the staff at Animal Medical Center and in particular, our vet, Dr. Rachael Nuzzo.  She’s relatively new to the office but we had met her through the local emergency vet office last year and were excited to switch exclusively to her when she joined our vet practice.  In the space of a little over a year she has seen all five (including our bunny who passed away last January) of our pets for various routine and emergency procedures.  Merlin, especially, has all sorts of odd medical conditions and I’ve been incredibly impressed by her attention to detail of learning all of his quirks and conditions.  Anyway, she’s awesome and if you’re local to Stephens City, I HIGHLY recommend her.

Back to the card…I wanted to thank her for everything she’s done over the past year but I figured she probably gets a lot of cards each year and I wanted mine to stand out a little more.  So I decided to “personalize” it with our specific pets.  At the time I didn’t have my sheltie stamps (have them now though, thanks to Jessica Lynn!!) so you’ll have to stretch your imagination with the stamp I worked with.  Also I added a rabbit stamp from Lawn Fawn and I realize that I desperately need to learn how to color a tortoiseshell cat.  Anyway, with all those disclaimers out of the way, here’s my card!

And just for reference, here’s our herd:

Not quite there…but I think it’s passable enough to make it memorable!  (I know I know…the cat looks like military camo…*sigh*)  I used the Simon Says Stamp Furry Christmas Stamp and stamped the image on Neenah Solar White cardstock with Memento tuxedo black ink.  Then I colored the image with copics and fussy cut it.  For fun I added stickles to the santa hat and my clear Wink of Stella glitter pen to the scarf.  I stamped the bunny from the Lawn Fawn Snow Day set and also colored it with copics.  To make her eyes stand out a little more I used a Gelly Roll glaze pen in black.  It’s not as obvious in the photo but her eyes do stand out from the black “fur.”

For the rest of the card, I used a diagonal stripe background stamp from My Favorite Things and stamped it on the card base with Mama Elephant apple pigment ink before embossing it with Hero Arts clear embossing powder.  Then I used the falling snow stencil from Simon Says Stamp and stenciled the background with Ranger texture paste.  I cut about a 3/4″ off the stenciled piece so that the red stripes would show through.  I attached the stenciled piece to the background and then fussy cut a snowbank for the critters to stand on.  I attached that with dimensional foam mounting tape then attached the animals with foam mounting tape above the snow line and regular adhesive below the ground line.  After I did that I realized that I had forgotten to add a sentiment (oops).  I stamped the word ‘Christmas’ from the WPlus9 Hand Lettered Holiday set onto the snow with the same Mama Elephant apple pigment ink.  Then I die cut the word ‘Merry’ from the same Wplus9 set and pressed it into my apple pigment ink pad.  After it was totally covered I sprinkled it liberally with Wow ultra high clear embossing powder and carefully heat set it so that the powder didn’t blow all over the place.  I attached it to the card with Ranger multi-medium matte.

So there you go, a fairly labor-intensive card but one I happily created for a very special person!

Make sure you visit the rest of our talented design team!  I hope you’ll play along in this week’s Christmas Card Challenge and I look forward to seeing your cards!

• Carol
• Donna
• Gail
• Heather
• JoAnn
• Lisa
• Margo
• Marsha
• Monica
• Shirley Anne
• Tenia

 

Supplies: