'Twas the Night Before Christmas...

I've had fun making my first ever 'easel' card recently. Yup, never made one before, had no idea what I was doing, or how to make it 'stand up', so I muddled along and figured it out as I went. I chose this, as I had some A4 cardstock I wanted to use to make the card, but knew I wasn't going to get the right size card out of it, so I needed to somehow fix two sheets together. So the idea to make an easel card came out of this. I have to say, my 'fix' for sticking the two bits together, is pretty rough and not at all ideal, but it worked!

The sweet image on my card, is by the talented author/illustrator Elizabeth O Dulemba and is called 'Waiting for Santa'. Her designs are so sweet and there are loads I want to colour up for this Christmas including a super fun one of Santa on a Vespa! You can find her lovely designs via her 'kids colouring page'. She very generously allows these images to be used for card making too (please read the 'terms of use) and has a gallery to show these.

I had great fun colouring this sweet image and trying to work out how I should colour the window frame, plain white painted wood didn't seem to fit for me. Many of the houses here in New Zealand have lovely native timber frames which are stained rather than painted to allow the lovely wood grain to show through, so I used a fine Promarker nib and created some 'grain' on the frame. Love how it turned out! I also carefully edged a shadow around Santa and his sleigh, to set him 'out' from the moon a bit. It's not that obvious in the photo, but it's there.

I used a lovely sentiment stamp from CC Designs, Sweet November range by Amy Young. It was a perfect fit for this lovely image.

The sweet pink roses are from Wild Orchid Crafts. I just love shopping there for my ribbon, lace and mulberry paper flowers. Check out their range, it's fabulous. I added some stickles star dust glitter to the rose below for a bit of added interest.

The paper I used is a lovely Panduro Hobby Christmas paper pad in brown and blue tones. It is called 'Winter'. The corner dies and the circle mat are Spellbinders Nestabilities. The black gems are from Meiflower and I edged all the papers in black memento ink. There you have it, I think I've run out of things to say! Unheard of!!

Nope, I knew there had to be something more to say, LOL. I forgot the 'easel bit'! So here's a close-up of the lovely Spellbinders shape I used to create the 'stop' for the easel and finally a couple of 'easel' shots...

I trimmed a couple of layers of the organza ribbon into rounds to go under the pink circle and central sentiment, which is from a Lili of the Valley circle sentiments set called 'Calendars'. I used a brad to link the circles so that I didn't have to glue each layer and then added the small circular sentiment on top, adding some Stickles glitter glue around the edge for a little sparkle. I mounted it on raised foam pads, so that it would work as an effect easel edge.

Thanks for stopping in today. I hope you've had fun looking at this latest make. If you like what you see, feel free to browse the back catalogue! I love it when you leave me a message it really does mean a lot and if you do, I can visit your little corner of the crafty world. If any of you has a tutorial on how to create easel cards properly, do feel free to share this with me! Hugs, Wends x

Challenge & Gallery Entries:
Papertake Weekly: Two by Two
7 Kids College Fund: #84 ~ Anything Goes
Challenges 4 Everybody: #31 ~ Anything Goes
Passion for Promarkers: #219 ~ Snow is Falling
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge: #146 ~ Make It Square
CHNC Challenge Extra for October: Anything 'Christmas' Goes
Crafting Musketeers Challenge Blog: #6 ~ Christmas In October
Christmas Cards All Year 'Round: October Challenge ~ Single Card
Elizabeth O. Dulemba Gallery: An open listing of crafts using Elizabeth's images.
Loves Rubber Stamps Challenge: #73 ~ Polka Dots (Girl mouse in Polka Dot nightdress)
ABC Christmas Challenge: T for Transparent (I used a lovely transparent organza ribbon)
Weekly Christmas Card Challenges: #46 Colour Combo - Pink, Brown & White (with a bit of blue too)