Welcome to the InKing Royalty Blog Hop for July!

This year’s Blog Hop themes are inspired by popular songs – this month’s song is “I Don’t Want to Wait ’til Christmas.” We are half-way through the year, so there’s no better time to start thinking about the joy of Christmas. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

What to Do When You Have Next to Nothing Current for Christmas?

I tend to be more of a non-traditional Christmas colors person.  The blues and silvers for Christmas make me happy. Last year’s Old Olive, Whisper White, and Basic Black Christmas DSP made my heart sing!  Therefore, when I first saw the Under the Mistletoe DSP in the 2018 – 2019 annual catalog, I didn’t think I needed to order it right away.  

The InKing Royalty Blog Hop, with the theme of “I Can’t Wait Until Christmas” rolled around in my head for about a week.  Mind you, we have sold our house and close this Friday.  We don’t close on the house we are buying until August 9, which just happens to be my second day of school with my new students.   We have some options as to where to stay for the 20 days between closings, but there are other events happening during that time as well.   Stress abounds around here right now, and then I started wondering what I could do for a Christmas card while in the middle of packing up the house  Since my paper share DSP is the only (!!) current Christmas product I have, I needed to be inventive. 

Then I realized that the Poppy Parade and Shaded Spruce colors are fabulous and don’t feel like traditional Christmas colors.   Score!  Next, I needed to figure out what to do with just the DSP.  Enter the eclipse card, but I wanted to put a twist on the original design.

The Results

Here are the cards I made for this Blog Hop using the Under the Mistletoe DSP:

These cards were both made from the same piece of the DSP.  I just love these colors and patterns, and am anxious to get my DSP sale order including this paper!   

A note about the logistics of this pair of cards:  it was necessary to crop NOEL out of both sides of the DSP.  It would not work to just crop the letters out and flip them over.  Lining up the letters using the Large Letters Framelits is the most difficult part of this card.   When I was done, I had the elements for two cards, and putting it all together is the easy part.

Every time I look at the polka dot card I feel like I am missing something underneath “NOEL”.  I will have to figure out what I can add to the front of the card.  I’ve got a few ideas I am considering, but don’t think I will make a decision before the blog hop starts.

Take It Up a Notch

I knew I needed to add some extra elements to the card using current products.   First, I grabbed the Faceted Dots and used the small black ones to embellish some of the stars on the bells.  I still needed something, so next I grabbed my fine tip glue and put a small dot on each of the small trios of blue dots.  For the polka dot card, I put small dots of glue on random large and small Poppy Parade dots.

Here’s a close-up of the faceted dots and the small trios of blue dots:

Eclipse Card Tips 

If you’ve never made an eclipse card before, let me share some tips I’ve learned along the way.

It is much, much easier to line the letters up using a metal ruler on the Big Shot magnetic plate.   

This ruler has a cork underside, which allowed me to use the cork as a stopping point for my letters.                       

I only used one layer of strips of foam tape, which I cut down to size.  If you are not using a coordinating paper for the letters, it helps to use two layers of foam tape.  A word to the wise:  don’t try this with dimensionals.  Take my word on this, it will save yourself time and frustration if you use foam tape,

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Robby Hamilton at Miss Hammie Crafts. There’s lots of inspiration to be found in this group – and you don’t want to miss it!

​Thank you for hopping along with us.  If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
2. Julie DiMatteo at The Paper Pixie
3. Sue Jackson at Just Peachy Stamping
4. Robbye Hamilton at Miss Hammie’s Crafts
5. Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations
6. Jackie Beers at Blue Line Stamping
7. Rachael Shedeed at Bluebonnet Stampin’
8. Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp
9. Shawn de Oliveira at Shawn Stamps
10. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy
11. Imogene Thomas at MomoMakes.com
12. Nina King at InkPaperSequins
13. Lynn Kolcun at Avery’s Owlery

Have a Peachy Day!