Snow is Glistening & Buffalo Check Christmas card

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Time for another Christmas card. This time we are going to make the Snow is Glistening and Buffalo Check Christmas card.

I just got in the mail my latest Stampin' Up! shipment and it had two beautiful stamps, the Buffalo Check background stamp and the Snow is Glistening stampset. I immediately set off to find inspiration on Pinterest. I was surprised that you can search for 2 different stampsets in Pinterest and was able to find these pins. And now that I've combined these two stampsets, maybe someone will find my card as inspiration 🙂

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Prepare the Stamparatus

I love using the Stamparatus. This card definitely lends itself to using the Stamparatus. When I decided I wanted to use the Buffalo Check background stamp, I quickly discovered that this might be a little difficult. I could put the stamp on a large block, ink it up, and then carefully place the paper on top. But I struggled to get a clean stamped image, so I decided to use the Stamparatus. If I did not get the image completely stamped, then I could always reapply with the stamparatus.

There are a couple of things I had to do to prepare the stamparatus.

Put a piece of grid paper down on the Stamparatus base. Stampin' Up! sells the grid paper that fits exactly in the Stamparatus, or you can cut down a piece of grid paper to fit 7″ x 7″. We want to do this because if we stamp off the cardstock, then you will get ink on the base and that might transfer to the next card you stamp. When placing the grid paper down, be sure to use 2 glue dots to prevent it from moving. I use glue dots because they are easy to remove from the acrylic base when you are finished.

Once you have the grid paper down, place the (clean) background stamp on the grid paper. Try to line the stamp straight along the grid lines but it does not have to be exact. Place the hinge plate over the stamp and press down to pick up the stamp. Then ink up the upper left corner of stamp. Use the hinge to place a stamped image on the grid paper as seen below in the image.

Since the background stamp will take up the entire card panel there isn't any room for you to put the magnets down (to hold the paper in place), you will need to cut the cardstock longer than you need. I cut a single piece of paper (8.5×11) in half so the dimensions were 5.5×4.25. I position the cardstock's orientation horizontal, whereas the stamp is vertical.

Create the Buffalo Check Background

Line up the corner of your cardstock to the corner of the stamped image on the grid paper. The more even you get your paper, the straighter your image will come out. Place magnets along the left side of the paper where the stamp will not touch.

Ink up your stamp and use the hinge plate to stamp your image on the cardstock. If you did not get enough coverage, try re-pressing the stamp or re ink it and give it another go. Thats the beauty of using a stamp positioner tool such as the Stamparatus.

Emboss the tree and the sentiment

Use the versamark ink and the white embossing powder to create the tree image from the Snow is Glistening stampset.

You can either fussy cut the tree or use the paper trimmer to cut a straight line so it looks a bit neater.

Die Cut the Snowflake

I love the glimmer paper. This particular paper that I am using is the Dazzeling Diamond Glimmer Paper, but it is retired. We have another glimmer paper that is very similar (if not the same). I have not ordered it yet but from the catalog it appears to be almost the same color.

Since this die is very intricate, you will want to use the regular Big Shot platform and the thinlit adapter. I found that with my Big Shot that wasn't cutting die out completely, so I added a thin piece of chipboard under the cutting plates just to make sure I was getting a clean cut. Warning if you use the extra chipboard, it will be difficult to roll. You may want to give it a try first with out the extra chipboard. My bigshot may just be a little loose from all of the use it gets.

Before removing the die from the paper, turn it over and take a look at the cut to see if it is complete. If it is not, then place your paper and die back down on your sandwhich and roll it through the Big Shot again.

Next you will need to remove the paper from the die and poke out all of the pieces of the snowflake.

Emboss the Sentiment

I wanted to stamp the outside sentiment on vellum so I knew I either needed to use a clear embossing powder or I needed to use a colored ink and clear embossing powder. Using Coastal Cabana ink and clear embossing powder seemed to be the best alternative since I was using white cardstock behind the vellum to stand out against the tree which had alot of detail on it.

Stamp the sentiment with the Coastal Cabana ink and quickly (before the ink drys) cover it with clear embossing powder. This will allow the colored ink to raise and set.

Be careful when heat setting vellum paper. It can get too hot quickly and warp the paper. I recommend using the lowest heat setting and just take your time in setting up the embossing powder.

Create the Sentiment Tag

Notch out both ends of the white strip with the triple banner punch. I love sparkly stuff so I used the Wink of Stella along the edges of the white tag.

Notch out the ends of the vellum strip that you embossed your sentiment. Then place 2 glue dots on the back of the vellum strip. I tried to hide them behind a busy part of the sentiment to reduce the chances of see it from the front side.

Stamp the inside of the card

Assemble the card

I recommend that you adhere the card panel to the front before putting the the star/tree/sentiment on. Since the glimmer paper is a bit rough and not smooth, I would suggest using tear and tape or if you still have the fast fuse in your collection. Put a small amount down on the back of the tree then adhere it to the front side of the snowflake.