Let it Snow

The new Christmas Card Throwdown challenge is a technique - shaker cards.

This is a new one for me, so took a bit of fiddling about, but I got there.

I am still feeling inspired by the last challenge, musical notation, so have combined the two. I started with the insert. I made this to fold at the top, although the card opens at the side, and to attach to the back of the card. That way, the front of the insert shows behind the clear shaker section, then you can write inside without it being seen from the front of the card.

I started with my musical score stamp, in sky grey pigment ink. Very subtle.

I then added the words in watering can archival ink. This is a Clarity stamp. And yes, I've been humming this tune all day!

I stamped the inside of the insert with Clarity Stamp snowflakes, in the sky grey.

They're subtle but do show properly in real life!

For the front, I started with a 6x6 card blank and Clarity stencil card cut to fit onto it. 

I brushed weathered wood distress ink over the stencil card to start with.

I joined this and the card blank with a repositionable tape pen, and die cut the aperture, to make sure they'd line up.

I then stamped snowflakes over the frame, in the sky grey ink. I edged it with a stormy sky distress marker.

I cut a frame from white glitter card, using the same die as the aperture and the size up, and attached this around the aperture.

For the shaker confetti, I raided my bag of small waste bits, for shiny silver papers. I also used some of the glitter card, silver mirror card and vellum with a silver design. I cut these with two punches, a musical note and a snowflake.

Some of the papers were one sided, so I had the brilliant idea to press them into a silver pigment ink pad to make the back decorative too. Only hours later when they were still wet did I think that pigment ink on coated card wasn't such a good idea. So I had to wipe it off!

I cut two squares of acetate, and attached the first behind the aperture with super sticky tape.

I don't have any proper shaker foam, I wasn't organised enough to order some in advance and our local craft shop doesn't stock it. So I used normal foam tape, the thickest I had, in two layers. This did make the sides of the "box" a bit sticky, so I'll rethink for next week.

I added all my confetti, then attached the second acetate square with more super sticky.

The whole construction went onto the card blank, carefully lined up with the aperture again, and the insert went into the card behind it.

I also decorated the envelope, using the music and snowflake stamps, and silver pigment ink.

So here we have my first shaker card! I didn't manage a photo that shows the sparkly confetti very well. This is quite a muted version, maybe next week I'll go for the full on bling with sequins!





If you'd like to join in with our shaker card challenge, please go to the Christmas Card Throwdown. You have until Friday 5th May, midnight BST, to enter. (You get three weeks instead of two this time, as there are 5 Saturdays in April!) We'd love to see what you come up with.