For this card, I combined the Merry Christmas sentiment from the Woodland Winter stamp set which came with Papercraft Essentials issue 137 with the Berry Sprig die by Sue Wilson and the Sparrow on a Branch die from Couture Creations :D When watching the video below, you may notice a background that doesn't feature in the final card, this was the one that I didn't think went with this card, and it ended up being the Mixed Media Bee Happy card I posted a little while ago :D
In the end this ended up being a really simple card, however it was a bit time consuming because of the amount of berry sprigs needed lol :D To get the base shape for the heart wreath, I used a Creative Dies nesting Heart die, and then I cut around this aperture with scissors to leave a narrow border roughly 5mm (this is what we will stick the Berry Sprigs to to build our wreath) For the Berry Sprigs, I used some Pastel Green Creative Expressions Foundation Cardstock and roughly blended some Twisted Citron and Lucky Clover Distress Inks over the top just to give a bit of variation in colour, I then proceeded to cut out quite a few of the Berry Sprigs (the great thing is that this die set comes with 4 dies, and you have the left handed and right handed version of each, which is perfect for getting the curvature around the perimeter of the heart shape!)...
Once the wreath was finished I used the heart die-cut from the aperture (used to create the wreath) to stamp my sentiment onto, as this would then fit perfectly behind the wreath :D I decided that to show off the wreath, this card needed a really simple background, so I die cut a white rectangle, and used a border embossing folder from Darice to add some texture to the bottom (I used the deboss side for a change :D)... For the focal element on top of the wreath I used the Sparrow on a Branch die, I ended up cutting this out of Taupe Foundations card, however I decided that black would make more of an impact and go with the black sentiment, so I used a black Promarker to colour it in :D The final finishing touch was then the addition of some Spectrum Noir clear sparkle :D :D :D Hope you like the card :D
To see the process behind this card, please watch my YouTube below, or over on my channel CRaFTi PoTeNTiAl :D
A couple more photos below showing a bit more of the subtle detail :D
I'm entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge :D
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-for-the-border/
