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

Posh Thank You

Why, hello!  So nice of you to drop by, especially so close to Christmas!  Everyone is so caught up in preparations at this time of year, that it's hard to just enjoy the season! 

My Christmas this year will be very different from my usual celebrations.  You see, since my girls all got married around the same time, we tried to coordinate a "home" year, where they all come home for Christmas, and an "away" year, where they spend their holiday with their in-laws.  I say "tried to coordinate", because it really hasn't worked out the way it was planned from the beginning.  There was always someone missing.  Now that they are beginning their families, it is even harder.  Of course, we are always welcome to go to their homes, but this year, my DH, who's been retired for two years, found himself a retail job that requires him to work both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day.  So no travelling for us this year.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I will not be spending Christmas with anyone but my hubby!  I felt mighty sorry for myself for a week or two, but I started looking at it as an opportunity to focus on some different aspects of Christmas.  We are usually so busy with preparations, that Christmas comes and goes without any time for solitude and reflection.  I have all my gifts shipped already, and just have a few stocking stuffers for DH to get and I will be done.  I don't have to cook a turkey.  We will have Christmas dinner at our church with other members of our congregation who don't have any family with them either.  One dish is all I will have to prepare!

I will have lots of crafting time and time to organize my business.  I am really looking forward to being more intentional about what I do in the new year.  I am looking forward to creating projects for you to read about and using all the new products in the Spring Mini catalogue.

But for now, one last seasonal card.  Many people from the community came and offered their talents to make our "One Night in Bethlehem" a success, and I wanted to create some classy cards to thank them for their efforts and generosity.  I came up with this design:

It uses a Stampin' Up product which has been around for a long while, but which I seldom see used on papercrafting blogs I read.  It is a specialty paper called Brushed Gold, and it really is very beautiful.  I don't know why I haven't used it more often.  I brought it out of obscurity to use because I wanted to enter Dynamic Duos challenge this week:

As you can see, the colours are Gold and Basic Black, and we don't really have a gold glimmer paper.  We have champagne which is really not gold at all.  Amazingly, this card also qualifies for two more challenges:  MOJO Monday #272   and The Paper Player's Challenge #126

It's rare that you can find three challenges that work together so well.  Mojo Monday's sketch by Carole Burrage is clean and simple as is Ann Schach's CAS Challenge using a snowflake for The Paper Players. 

Of course, my repeating design was a snowflake from the Hostess Set, Four Seasons. It was stamped in VersaMark and heat embossed with Gold Stampin' Emboss powder.   It is the perfect size to punch out using the 1" Circle punch.  And that fit perfectly on the Postage Stamp punch, used on some Brushed Gold card stock.  On a panel of Basic Black, I also embossed in gold the Thank You sentiment from the Lacy and Lovely stamp set.  I mounted all this on a panel of Brushed Gold and tied a bow around it using 5/8" Organza Ribbon in Whisper White.  This, in turn, was mounted on the card base of Basic Black.


                                  

Simple, but elegant.  Hope you like it!  Please leave me a comment to let me know what you think!  I love to read all your messages.  Let me know how your holiday celebrations have changed over the years.

Stamps:  Four Seasons Hostess set (w12683; c126832); Lacy and Lovely (w122885; c122887)
Paper:  Basic Black (121045) and Brushed Gold (102935) card stock
Ink:  VersaMark (102283)
Accessories: 5/8" Organza Ribbon (114319) in Whisper White; Gold Stampin' Emboss Powder (109129)
Tools: 1" Circle Punch (119868); Postage Stamp Punch (122344); Heat Tool (129053)