Penny Black’s Bauble Balance Elf Christmas Card

Hello everyone! I’m sorry I’ve been away such a long time but I was travelling with my husband.  Although we arrived home a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been busy putting together a photo book of our trip before I forgot everything. And now it’s November and I just can’t believe how the time has gone by so quickly! So I’m rushing to make Christmas cards of course.

I fell in love with this little elf from Penny Black’s new Bauble Balance stamp set. This stamp is the perfect size for a quick card because you really only need the stamp and sentiment. Those baubles are just the right size to decorate too. I’ve adhered glitter to mine on these cards but it would be easy to stamp and emboss a patterned stamp on them, colour and add glossy accents, use shimmer paints, doodle in them with a glitter pen, add foil ... so many possibilities!

So to begin my cards I stamped the elf image in the bottom right corner of my card front with Gina K black amalgam ink.  I stamped quite a few of these while I had my stamp in position, because I had so many pretty colours of micro glitter from the dollar store.  I then chose three copic colours to colour them in with. I tried to pick colours to coordinate with the glitter that I had.

For the baubles, I used some Couture Creations DieCut’N Bond double sided adhesive. This is new to me, but Jennifer McGuire did a video a short while ago using it with stencils and glitter and I wanted to try it out. Here's the link to her post: https://www.jennifermcguireink.com /2019/10/glitter-stenciling-technique-blog-hop-giveaway.html   The  DieCut’N Bond is really the same idea as Stick It double sided adhesive, but I think it has a stronger adhesive. This tape comes in a roll, so only one side of it has release paper. I adhered a piece of this tape to a scrap piece of release paper I had saved. Then I stamped the baubles on to the release paper and fussy cut them out. This was actually very quick and easy to do.

The large roll on the left is the DieCut' N Bond. 

Once I had the baubles cut out, I removed the backing from the unstamped side and applied the image to my card front. I used a bone folder to lightly press down the bauble so the adhesive would adhere to my card front. Once I had all the baubles in place, it was time for the glitter. Now this is where you should prepare yourself for a mess! Even though I cleared my desk and put scrap paper beneath my work area, and used a Swiffer cloth, I think I still have glitter everywhere!!  You've been warned. 😇

Add just a small amount of glitter

Use a bone folder to press the glitter into the adhesive.

I removed the release paper from one of the baubles at a time.  Add just a little glitter to the bauble and press it into the adhesive with a bone folder.  I used a brush and a piece of Swiffer dust cloth to remove the excess glitter before moving onto the next bauble.  Once I had all the baubles glittered up, I used the same 3 Copic markers to create a sentiment strip.  I used the sketch ends of the marker and just used the same pattern I had used to create the elves.  I then stamped the sentiment onto this in black Versamark ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  I trimmed this down and adhered it with foam tape onto my card front.

Finally, I adhered the card front to my card base and added a few crystal drops.  These were very quick and easy cards to make and I had so much fun picking out different colours.  They are much more sparkly and attractive in real life too. I hope you will give these cards a try!