Stampin' Up! Stamp Club

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!  Christmas Eve is a big day in our family, almost bigger than Christmas morning.  Every year we gather in the evening at my brother's house and continue a tradition that was begun by my grandmother long ago.  We have heavy hors d'oeuvres as our meal!  This began because my great-uncle would receive many gifts of food from business colleagues so they opened them up and made a meal of them one year.  Continuing this tradition over the years, my grandmother would make us a great feast of things I would never have had the opportunity to try otherwise, like caviar pie!  My mother loves the tradition because she would rather eat hors d'oeuvres than a meal any day of the year.  Every year we ask each person what their favorite dish we make is and then go to town and cook all day: sliced beef tenderloin with tapenade served on french bread, Heidelhouse meatballs, pizza dip (the kids love this one), peel n' eat shrimp (already peeled thanks to my step-dad), shrimp dip, boursin, crabbies (a cheese and crab mixture spread on an English muffin and toasted).  This year my daughter has requested that I also make hidden treasure dip (sour cream, cream cheese, bean dip, a taco packet and LOTS of cheese on top - that's what "hides" the dip) so we'll add that to the list.  After our tummies are full, we sit down and open gifts with the cousins (we save immediate family gifts for Christmas morning).  When I was a child, we opened one gift every Christmas Eve.  It was always new pajamas that we would wear that night!  What are your Christmas Eve traditions?

Now that your mouth is watering - on to the card!  LOL

This is the card we made during our November Stamp Club workshop.  If you know me at all, then you know the only time I wet emboss is at Stamp Club!  However, I made 3 of these cards and must say that I may finally be getting the hang of wet embossing.

We also used a technique that I rarely remember to use - stamping off without re-inking to achieve a different shade of the same color ink.  The tree on the right is the first stamp and the tree on the left is the second stamp without re-inking.  The tree in the middle is the one we wet embossed.  This can give the look of depth or distance to your card with the lighter images appearing to be farther away.

I just love this red because it's so rich - it's Cherry Cobbler.  I use Cherry Cobbler and Riding Hood Red a lot!