Okay, so yes, I’m a little early with Christmas cards, but I just traded for this set and couldn’t wait to play! It’s called Holy Triptych and was in the Holiday mini catalog 2007, but I just didn’t have the money to buy it while it was available. So I managed to find someone and trade it. Hooray! Okay, so now that I have it, what do I do with it??? I browsed lots of galleries…Sudsol & Splitcoast in particular, but I couldn’t really find anything that jumped out at me. Most of the cards used one image from the set and I really wanted to find a way to use all three. It took a lot of finagling (ha, I didn’t even know how to spell that word!) but I finally found a past sketch challenge that looked perfect!

So, the problem was, the sketch was for a standard sized card, and these images are too large to fit all of them on a standard sized card. Hmmm…okay, we’ll try a big card…so I folded a sheet of paper in half, but it was very tall and I didn’t like the tall look. Well, now what? So, I got to thinking (scary, I know) and decided to make a proportionately larger card. So, this card is 5.5″x7″ and would fit the SU! large envelopes. This was the perfect size and shape to for what I wanted. And, here she is:

So, this is Elegant Eggplant card base that measures 7″x11″. Fold it in half so it measures 5.5″x7″, then fold the front in half to make a tri-fold. I then stamped the wisemen, the angel & the inside sentiment with VersaMark & covered with gold embossing powder. After a little love from the heating tool, we have the beautiful shiny images.

As for the focal piece, I used Whisper White cardstock and inked the image, first in VersaMark and then immediately in Basic Black and stamped it. Sprinkled some clear embossing powder over top and got the black embossed lines. (This would also work with Black Craft ink or black embossing powder.) Next, I colored the image with my Stampin’ Write Markers; I used Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Bashful Blue, Brilliant Blue, Close to Cocoa, Blush Blossom and Barely Banana. I trimmed the image so it was the size I needed and mounted it on Brushed Gold cardstock to add some shimmer to the main image. (I think it would be fantastic on the Shimmery White cardstock instead of whisper white, but I didn’t have any of that on-hand.) And, voila! A Christmas card in May.

Here is a picture of the card opened, so you can see how the fold works. Unfortunately, this set did not come with a sentiment, so I used the verse from “Madonna & Child” retired set.

I was very excited with how this turned out, but after making this one, I don’t think I’ll have the energy to make these as our Christmas cards. I would definitely do it if we only sent out 20-25 cards, but man, let me tell you, not for 120 cards! Not that many.

Thanks for looking! Happy stamping!