on the twelfth day of christmas...

ok, i think it's actually only been about a week of holiday and winter-themed cards and projects, but we've packed a lot in, dontcha think? here is my final hero arts project for the design team's expanded "winter wonderland" gallery over at caardvarks! (you'll see i've saved one of my faves for last!)

this one is not christmassy, as such; though it would make for a fairly nice semi-fancy holiday gift presentation. heck, if we swapped the little flowers for poinsettias...or threw a few holly leaves on there, it'd "theme up" pretty quickly! but at the moment this one is more valentine's day, i s'pose.*

(rubber stamps: hero arts; pillow box template w/heart window: the cutting cafe; patterned paper: basic grey + some croc-textured glossy black origami paper + some inkjet transparency + some hambly transparency; flowers & gem flourishes: prima (the white flowers came printed; the red i stamped & embossed with my hero arts houndstooth background stamp...sheesh i LOVE that thing!) gem brads: k&co; chipbaord frame (inside card): colorbok; inks: staz-on & colorbox; adhesives: tombow mono runners in regular and "power bond")

to make the stamped transparency in the window i used some of the more generic greetings ("joy", "warmest wishes") from the hero arts holiday sayings clear-stamp set, and then filled in with additional text from the all-occasion sayings set. one of the things i like about BOTH of those greetings sets is that they include a range of sizes and shapes and fonts...it's so easy to line a bunch of them up together on one acrylic block like i've done here and make a little piece of word art!

the box is of course done with the antique brocade "cling" stamp. i was slightly nervous about lining up the stamp since the "clings" are not clear like the acrylic stamps...but they are so nice and thin...and so neatly trimmed at the edges that i had no problem aligning the multiple images i needed to cover the whole pillow box!

the two hearts on the card are the bits i trimmed out to create the window and frame of the box. as they were sitting on my table when the box was done, practically screaming, "hellllllllllllllo! we'd make a really nice MATCHING CAAAAAAAAARD!!!" it seemed churlish not to make one.

there is still plenty of time to enter your very own freshly made "winter" creation in the current caardvarks challenge, and since the prize is a nice pack of BRAND NEW hero arts goodies...by golly, what are you waiting for???!?! :)

*in actual fact it will probably hold a gift card and some fancy chocs for my brother and s-i-l's anniversary the day after thanksgiving; by the time i was about halfway through construction, it was so clearly saying "sandy-n-bill" to me that i finished it off accordingly. so not xmassy...but another thing done really EARLY for the busy holiday season...SWEEEEEEET! :)