Yana’s City Holiday – It’s Christmas Time in the City

Welcome back to the Spellbinders blog. Joan Bardee here sharing 3 Christmas cards with products from Yana Smakula’s spectacular Yana City Holiday Collection. Each product in the collection is a keeper – from a detailed city house front to Christmas crackers, a bold (and so clever) joy die, and a gorgeous BetterPress Letterpress holiday registration plate set. And don’t forget the sentiments!

This collection, while full of modern details, sent me back in time. As soon as I saw City Holiday Etched Dies, I thought of the times I’ve been in Manhattan at Christmastime (magical) and the Christmas carol, Silver Bells, with its beautiful refrain … It’s Christmas time in the city. I hope you enjoy this collection as much as I do.

SILVER BELLS… IT’S CHRISTMAS TIME IN THE CITY

With the Silver Bells Christmas carol and Yana’s sample card as my inspirations, I went to work. Lately, I’ve been loving pink and red. So, here we have a pink home against a dark gray night, with white, black, red, and green as Christmas accents. And, to keep with the Silver Bells theme, a sparkle of silver gems. I got my inspiration for the pink house from an episode of House Hunters International that took place in France. It was delightful!

• Most of the construction of this card is obvious from looking at the photo, but I’ll highlight a few steps.
• Select your color palette and die-cut all the pieces. The house die piece will produce the outside of the house with impressions for where each of the windows will be placed. Makes it a snap to line up all the windows and doors.
• You get to select the type of window treatments, whether to use the cat and dog (yes!!), how to decorate the windows and doors, and the background. This reminds me of putting together a little dollhouse. I used Poppy, Blush, Peridot, Rainforest, Fern, Anchor, Raven, and White ColorWheel cardstocks.
• Don’t forget to add some bricks to the front of the card. They add a subtle detail that makes the card special. I only added 4, but you are the designer, so you choose.
• Placed the cat inside the window and dog on the outside, and added red and silver accents to them. The animals are optional, but add a sweet touch to the design.
• Hot foiled one of the sentiments in the Christmas Cheer Sentiments BetterPress Plate & Die Set. Used Black foil onto white cardstock and used the coordinating die to cut it out. Adhered the sentiment with foam tape as shown.
• Trimmed a piece of dark gray (Anchor) cardstock to A2. Die-cut a bank of snow in white and adhered it to the gray panel.
• Adhered the finished Blush house with foam tape for dimension to the dark gray card panel. Used Bearly Arts Glue to adhere all the other pieces.
• Added Silver Mix Color Essential Gems for some holiday shine.
• Adhered the finished panel with glue to a white A2 side-folded card.
• Started thinking about who would receive this special card. I think I know the right person.

Note: it’s hard to tell in the photos, but the base card is dark gray (Anchor) (not black) as is the inside of each window. However, the windowsills are black.

TIP: There are many elements in the City Holiday set that can be used without the house – the cat and dog, the gift boxes and bows, and the wreaths all would work beautifully in a grid design. Even the bricks have potential to use for a geometric background.

BOLD SHADOW JOY

The Shadow Joy Etched Dies set is so clever. The “shadow” is made up of multiple pieces. The shadow makes it look like “Joy” is multiple layers, but it is actually flat. So cool! And the large size makes for a quick and impressive focal point.

• Die cut Joy in Blush and the shadow pieces in Poppy and adhered together with Bearly Arts glue.
• Trimmed a piece of white cardstock to slightly larger than an A2 size.
• Placed the Joy die cut onto the panel of white cardstock so I could see where to hot foil the “to one and all sentiment.” (Apologies, but I do not have the name of the set with this small sub sentiment. I moved after I made the card, and I am unable to find it!)
• Hot foiled the sentiment using my Glimmer machine and red hot foil.
• Embossed the foiled panel using the Holly & Foliage 3D Embossing Folder and my Platinum 6 machine.
• Trimmed the embossed panel to an A2 size, making sure that the sentiment was straight.
• Adhered the large Joy with foam tape and added a few silver gems.
• Adhere the panel with Bearly Arts glue to a white A2 side-folded card.

TIP: This card came together quickly and would be easy to mass-produce. If you don’t want to make an embossed background a plain, striped, or color-blocked background would work well with this large Shadow Joy. In addition, the shadow pieces could be different colors. Lots of options when working with a large focal point.

Christmas Cracker Holiday Wishes

Did your family use Christmas crackers? I never heard of them until I was an adult, but once I saw them, I made sure to have them at the table. So much fun! The ones in Christmas Cracker Etched Dies make a beautiful and fun card.

• Die-cut both the crackers from Cracker Christmas Etched Dies using Poppy, Blush, and Silver cardstock. Adhered all the pieces together as shown with Bearly Arts glue.
• Die-cut the foliage with Rainforest, Peridot, and Poppy cardstock and adhered the berries
• Embossed a panel of white cardstock with the Scenic Poinsettias 3D Embossing Folder and trimmed to an A2 size. Adhered it with glue to a white A2 side-folded card.
• Die-cut the sentiment with Poppy cardstock twice and adhered together to give it some heft.
• Adhered everything to the card as shown using glue and foam tape.

TIP: If you want to save time, turn the card on its side to a landscape view and use only one cracker. You could also omit embossing the background.

Thanks for reading and, as always, to Spellbinders. You run an amazing company full of fantastic products and terrific people. It’s been a joy to work with your products and your team.

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