"Stained Glass" Christmas Card

I was looking at the Christmas cards that I have posted lately and I realized that they are nearly all in "untraditional" colors.  Today I have a more conventional card to share with you (well, at least the colors are conventional). I designed this card with stained glass in mind.  I wanted to create the effect of light shining through a window.

Here is the card I designed just after I took it from the cutting mat.  As you can see the design is cut into the front of the card.  I have a fascination for designs that are cut out from a background for a pierced effect.  I have many dishes and silver pieces that also feature pierced designs - someday I'll post a few photos of my collections.

I used the DCWV shimmer cardstock in a nice shade of green for my card base.  Whenever you make this sort of cut, there are remainder pieces left on the mat.  I hate to let these go to waste, so, if the design will work by itself, I try to save these.

I use vinyl transfer tape to lift the designs from the mat and keep everything in place.  Just be sure to burnish it well to adhere to all of the cut pieces.  This design is pretty simple to lift because the pieces are relatively large.

Here you can see how nicely the design lifted.  Keep a watch out for this image to reappear on another project soon.

I was planning to use some printed tissue paper for the "glass" in the window.  In order for the light to shine through the paper, I needed to create a liner to hold the tissue paper with an opening that matched the cut out area.  Here is my cut tested against the card to be sure that there are no areas blocked by the liner.

The liner is just slightly shorter and thinner than the card base so it will not show when the card is closed.  The red tissue paper will go between these two layers on the card front only.

I used a thin tape runner to add adhesive close to the edges of the cut out area of the liner.  I cut a piece of the tissue paper to about 4 x 5 1/4 inches to use as the "glass" insert.

I adhered the tissue paper to the liner with the printed side facing to the top of the card.  The card and liner have rounded corners so I needed to trim these away.

I trimmed all four corners to allow room for the adhesive to hold the liner and card together tightly.

I added adhesive along each side of the image and then added more adhesive closer to the corners.  I placed the liner on the front of the card with the tissue paper sandwiched between the card and liner.

The tissue paper allows the light to shine through the cut out design.

The inside of the card has a neat finish and the light can shine through to the inside as well.  The liner is not attached to the back of the card - this makes the card open and close more easily and gives some space for an extra message or handwritten note.

I used my favorite "peel-offs" to add the "Merry Christmas" to the front of the card.  Now I just needed to add some sparkle.

Some of the new vintage jewels and some gradient gem stickers from Creative Charms to add just the right amount of elegance to the design.

Here is a closer view of the gems and the card front.  I used green and red gem stickers and coordinated the gradient gems with the color of the vintage jewel teardrops in the center sections.

This same basic concept can be used for many different cards.  I will do another post to show exactly how I designed the file in Design Studio.

I wonder if anyone can guess which cartridge I used to make this design.  I think you might be surprised to find out where my basic elements came from.  Just leave a comment if you think you know...or leave a comment to tell me what you think of this type of card.

I am sure you can think of many variations for this type of design - I may try a multicolored "window" next!

Happy St. Nikolaus Day!

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