Red Poinsettias

What happens in July?   Crafters begin thinking about Christmas cards.  It is so nice to get an early start so when the holidays arrive, we don't have to spend a lot of time creating the beautiful cards we want to send out to the special people in our lives.

If you follow me, you know I love to create my Christmas cards using Susan's Garden Notes Poinsettia dies.  Today I have created three red poinsettias and embellished with Garden Notes Whitepine Boughs.

This is a 6-inch card that will fit nicely into the Clear Acrylic Box linked below.  

I used a piece of white embossed  card stock, from my stash, for the background on this card.  The Scor-Pal was used to score a line around all four edges. 

Three Poinsettias were created by die cutting the red leaves out of bright red card stock.  They were shaped using the Flower Tool Kit.  For the center of each poinsettia, a small ball of 'YES' glue was rolled in green, yellow and red Prills, then glued in the center of the poinsettia.  Susan has a video on her Garden Spot Live Facebook page showing how to assemble the poinsettia and how to create the center (bracts). 

Both the red and green leaves were shaded with PanPastels.  A mixture of red and dark green PanPastels were used on the center vein of the red leaves and the light yellow green was sponged down the center of the green leaves.  A little bit of red and darker green PanPastes was sponged around the edges on the green leaves.  PanPastels are easy to clean up on your work space by using a Swifter cloth.  

The Garden Notes Whitepine Bough & Pinecone die set was used to die cut enough boughs to fill in nicely under the poinsettia arrangement.  The boughs were die cut using a dark green card stock then sponged with the light yellow green PanPastels.  Tonic Nuvo Glitter Accents Fresh Snowfall drops were used to add glittered snow to the pine boughs.

For the sentiment, I used GinaK Design Joyful Holiday Foil Mates.  I love adding sparkle and shine to my Christmas cards.  The foil used on the sentiment is Radiant Red Fancy Foil.  It has a beautiful sparkle in the foil.  The die set used to cut out the Foil Mate sentiment was the GinaK Designs Double Stitch Small Rectangle die set.  A piece of red mirror card stock, from my stash, was used to line the die cut sentiment. 

It feels good to have my first Christmas card created.  Hopefully I will have them all completed before the holiday season!  Have you started your Christmas cards yet?