O Come All ye Faithful

I like to have traditional Nativity cards amongst my collection of cards to send out at Christmas, because I have friends connected with my Church life who I know appreciate this recognition of the first Christmas story. However, it isn't always easy to find good stamp sets.

I loved the simplicity of this "All ye Faithful" stamp set instantly. The line drawings give it a charm and versatility that appealed to me.

Because there are the three main images in the set, I instantly felt drawn to creating a triple easel card, which would give the illusion of the visitors gathering around this special family.I choose to make it monotone and picked pacific point. Mary is always depicted wearing blue. There are many theories, but one is that blue was one of the hardest and most expensive dies to create in ancient times, so if she was wearing blue, then she must be special indeed.

The Three Kings, or wise men, or Magi - I thought they deserved some gold. This picture doesn't do the card justice, because of the reflection on the mirri card. I embossed the gold background using the lucky stars textured impression embossing plate.Both the image of the Kings and the greeting were stamped in versamark and heat embossed with gold embossing powder. I then ran the versamark pad around the edge of the card and added gold embossing powder to this too. I used black cad to make my card blank and to stamp onto.

The shepherd and his lambs, simply stamped and coloured with the aqua painter. I love this little card. Very simple.

The proud parents stamped in smoky slate and an aqua painter used to drag in some of the grey. the only other colour added was yellow for the halo. I created the card base using the stars framelits - first cutting the base and then a silver frame to go on top. The base underneath is not a complete star because I ensured the top point of the star overlapped the fold in the card to ensure a hinge remained.

Table built using Product Table Builder by The Crafty Owl - Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.

This is one of the stamp sets I intend to use at the fundraising afternoon I am running in partnership with our town centre Church. They are providing the tea and cake and I'm bringing the craft. If anyone would like to join us, we would love to see you.

Helen

xx