Peaceful Boughs for Customer Thank Yous

At this time of year, I like to send out customer thank you cards with orders that convey a holiday greeting as well as a thank you for the order. I have used the Beautiful Boughs Dies a lot over the course of the Holiday Catalogue, but I haven't used the coordinating stamp set, Peaceful Boughs a whole lot. I decided to use them today.

I was inspired, actually, by the palette of the Christmas decor and house design of one of the celebrities on Love It or List It Vancouver, Jillian Harris, who just so happens to live in my city of Kelowna. Her house has beautiful tones of creams, and peach and whites and her Christmas decor is the same, but adds gold as well. You can see the photo if you click on her name above!

Petal Pink

Very Vanilla

Whisper White

Gold Foil

Here's a closer look:

• I started by taking sheets of Shimmery White cardstock and watercolouring them with Petal Pink ink and water. I then cut up each sheet into four        4 3/4" x 3 1/4" pieces. 
• I used Versamark to stamp on the two largest pine boughs and the Season's Greetings sentiment. I then covered the images with Gold Stampin' Emboss powder and heat set the images. Most of them I left like this before adding the Snowflake Sequins and gluing to the card front.
• On a few, I also embossed 2 pinecones in Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder and die cut them and the large and medium pine boughs from Whisper White cardstock.                                                                    
• These I added to the card front using Glue Dots. Then a few Snowflake Sequins were added as well.

I hope my customers like these, and I hope you do too!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.  

Product List

Peaceful Boughs Cling Stamp Set (En) [150541] $31.00	Peaceful Boughs Bundle (En) [153033] $71.00	Shimmery White 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [101910] $13.50	Whisper White Note Cards & Envelopes [131527] $9.50	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [100730] $13.25
Versamark Pad [102283] $13.00	Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder [109129] $8.25	Petal Pink Classic Stampin' Ink Refill [147169] $5.00	Snowflake Sequins [150443] $8.25	Aqua Painters [103954] $23.00
Embossing Buddy [103083] $8.25	Heat Tool (Us And Canada) [129053] $41.00	Beautiful Boughs Dies [150661] $48.00	Multipurpose Liquid Glue [110755] $5.50	Mini Glue Dots [103683] $7.25

Christmas Pines for After Christmas Thank You Notes

How was your Christmas Day? Did you overeat? Oversleep? Overdrink? Overplay? Or did you just enjoy the joys of the day with moderation? My day was very quiet, because none of my kids or grandkids could be here with us (insert very sad face here) and because my husband had to work both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day (today) we couldn't get away to visit any of them either! But quiet does have it's bonuses. I've had such a busy run up until Christmas that it's nice to just enjoy the extra rest and sleep without the hassle of cooking a big meal and waking up early early to excited little ones (although I'd exchange it in a minute if I could!)

Did you get what you wanted for Christmas? Do you participate in the ritual of sending Thank You notes to people who have sent you gifts from out of town? My mother always insisted that we sit down after Christmas to write a thank you note to Grandma and Aunt Mabel and whoever else had sent us a gift and I think it is a charming way of acknowledging their effort in going to the trouble of selecting, wrapping and sending you a gift. I continued that tradition with my own girls and we always kept a list as we unwrapped gifts, so we remembered who sent what to whom! Very handy when it came time for Thank You notes.

I think having a cute card to write in makes it much more fun and easier than just scribbling on a piece of paper. These cards were actually customer thank yous, but would work perfectly as gift thank yous as well.

• I used two different stamp sets for this card, both from the Annual Catalogue. One is Christmas Pines, a set from last year's Holiday Catalogue, carried over into this year's Annual Catalogue. The other is Thankful Thoughts, a set of thank you sentiments that comes in handy.
• The Designer Series Paper is Dashing Along, which has some really subtle yet elegant designs just made for Christmas themed cards.
• The cards you see here are notecard sized - 3 1/2" x 5" - which is a quick size to make and fill up with images and sentiments.
• The embellishments are either Cherry Cobbler Braided Linen Trim - a leftover from my November Paper Pumpkin Kit, or Rhinestone Basic Jewels coloured with the Dark Cherry Cobbler Stampin' Blends.
• The card base is Thick Whisper White cardstock.

During this week of Boxing Day sales, let me remind you that the retiring products from the Holiday Catalogue only have a week to go until they are gone for good, and some of them are available at substantial savings. Let me know quickly if you want to place an order with me, or go to my On-Line Store and place an order yourself.

I am working on something new from the Occasions Catalogue to share with you on Friday! Stay tuned!!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

Christmas Pines Photopolymer Stamp Set [142049] $44.00	Thankful Thoughts Wood-Mount Stamp Set [141519] $37.00	Thankful Thoughts Clear-Mount Stamp Set [141522] $26.00	Dashing Along Designer Series Paper [149903] $15.00	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Thick Cardstock [140272] $10.50
Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730] $13.25	Cherry Cobbler Classic Stampin' Pad [147083] $10.25	Soft Suede Classic Stampin' Pad [147115] $10.25	Garden Green Classic Stampin' Pad [147089] $10.25	Old Olive Classic Stampin' Pad [147090] $10.25
Rhinestone Basic Jewels [144220] $6.75	3/16" (1 Cm) Braided Linen Trim [147808] $9.50	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755] $5.50	SNAIL Permanent Adhesive [104332] $9.50

With Grateful Thanks for My Team for One Night in Bethlehem

I've mentioned that I direct a Christmas outreach program called One Night in Bethlehem, where we turn our church into a Bethlehem marketplace and let people roam through, taking part in the interactive displays and crafts.  Then we perform a play based on the first Christmas.  That's coming up this weekend and it is an incredible amount of work, but very satisfying to see it all put together.  I have an amazing team who each use their gifts to organize one or more aspects of the evening and I really wanted to thank them, so I designed a card which I will make enough of to give to the team.

• This is also created for the Challenge #81 over at Dynamic Duos this week.  It's Your Choice week, so we are to work with Midnight Muse and one other colour of our choice.  I chose silver for the festive sparkle.

• I used the elegant Dove from Calm Christmas and heat embossed it in Silver Stampin' Emboss powder.  I wasn't sure how that would work with all those fine lines in the stamp.  I thought they might be obliterated with the embossing powder, but as you can see, it worked brilliantly.
• I added a panel of Midnight Muse on the card base, but embossed it up to the ribbon with the Modern Mosaic Embossing Folder for a little texture on the bottom.

• This view gives a little better look at the sparkle and shine from the silver embossing powder (which is on the sentiment from Lacy and Lovely, too) and the Silver Glimmer paper.
• The Midnight Muse Stitched Satin Ribbon is beautiful layered on the Silver Glimmer paper.
• I added some Rhinestone Basic Jewels on the dove for a little added dimension and shine.
• The sentiment is also heat embossed and punched out with the Large Oval punch and layered with Glimmer paper punched with the Scallop Oval punch.

I hope this helps my committee to feel my appreciation for them and all the work they did.  I'll let you know how it went after this weekend.  Thanks for dropping by!

• Calm Christmas Wood-Mount Stamp Set
• Calm Christmas Clear-Mount Stamp Set
• Lacy & Lovely Clear-Mount Stamp Set
• Lacy Lovely
• Midnight Muse 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock
• Whisper White 8-1/2X11 Card Stock
• Silver Glimmer Paper
• Versamark Pad
• Silver Stampin' Emboss Powder
• Basic Rhinestones Jewel Accents
• Midnight Muse 3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon
• Heat Tool
• Circles Collection Framelits Dies
• Large Oval Punch
• Scallop Oval Punch