A Subtle Christmas Card

Our friends from Japan often send us the most elegant, simple Christmas cards that make me wonder if they think our American cards are too gaudy. In a conscious effort to pare down on embellishments and yet retain beauty, I came up with this card to send to faraway friends this year. I started by experimenting with various embossing powders on colored washi (?) paper that contained little wispy fibers and gold/silver flakes. I found that the best combination was a powder that was mixture of opaque white and silver. (Embossing is done by stamping an image with pigment ink because it stays wet on the surface of the paper long enough to sprinkle on the powder and heat it with a heat gun.) The mixture of the white and silver gave just the right look of glistening snow (sorry, hard to see this in the photo). Next the embossed scene was taped (Merikan) to the piece of K and Co. foiled cardstock which was adhered to the white card.

For those of you who have to have a little bling, you can add a glittered reindeer sticker (Jolie's) inside the card. A card like this is simple to make in multiples, but looks very professional (which is especially good for business related purposes). I hope your week is going well and you are getting all your holiday duties completed. Thanks for taking the time to stop by during this hectic season. Smile and craft a little to de-stress.