Pretty Pines Window Scene Christmas Card

This is the Christmas card I made for our friend Jan.  Very sadly, Jan lost her husband Alan during 2016 and I thought a classic card design would be most appropriate.  I found it hard to come up with ideas, I think I was so concerned about hitting the right note with the card.  Pinterest is a saviour in times like this and I found THIS CARD made by Tami Hewlett and I CASEd her lovely design.

I lightly brayered Smoky Slate ink over the embossed brickwork panel and inked the edges of the panel with a sponge dauber before gluing the panel to the front of a 5" x 7" white card base.  I stamped snowflakes onto a piece of white card using VersaMark ink and I heat embossed the snowflakes with white embossing powder.  I applied Tumbled Glass, Broken China and Faded Jeans Distress Inks to the snowflake piece using ink duster brushes, trimmed the piece to size and glued it behind the die cut window shape.  I inked the edges of the window with Smoky Slate ink applied with a sponge dauber and popped the window up.

I die cut various greenery using the SU! 'Pretty Pines' die set and I stamped and die cut three pine cones.  I glued the greenery in place, added three mini pine cone embellishments on top of a die cut sparkly red bow and added red stones as berries.  I knew Jan would find Christmas very hard without Alan and a 'Merry Christmas' sentiment didn't seem fitting so I didn't put a sentiment on the card front.

Here's the inside of the card.  I stamped only the 'with loving wishes' part of the sentiment, omitting the 'for a bright and beautiful season' part.  I used square dies from the SU! 'Stitched Shape' Framelits die set for the sentiment and added more greenery, pine cones and berries.

Here's the envelope, made with patterned paper and the SU! envelope punch board.  I added a strip of contrasting paper and popped up stitched oval shapes as a name label.

Jan came to us for Christmas lunch and we had a very relaxing, enjoyable day.  I'm pleased to say that she was very happy with the card - huge thanks to Tami for the wonderful inspiration!

Supplies:
Stamps: SU! 'Wonderland', 'Christmas Pines' & 'Embellished Ornaments' sets
CS: PaperMania 5" x 7" white card blank, SU! Pear Pizzazz, Old Olive, Mossy Meadow & Crumb Cake, SU! Real Red Glimmer Paper
Patterned paper: SU! 'Presents & Pinecones' DSP
Ink: VersaMark, SU! Smoky Slate, Soft Suede & Real Red, Ranger Tim Holtz Tumbled Glass, Broken China & Faded Jeans Distress Inks
Tools: Poppystamps 'Grand Madison Window' die, Creative Expressions Brick embossing folder, SU! 'Pretty Pines' & 'Stitched Shapes' die sets, SU! envelope punch board, brayer, Inkylicious ink duster brushes, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: red stones, SU! white embossing powder & Dimensionals