Winter Solstice Card for Holiday Blog Hop

Christmas may get most of the attention but there are many more December celebrations around the world and it is these which are the theme of our international Holiday Blog Hop, which has been set up to promote #stampingdiversity.

One of the oldest celebrations in the world is Winter Solstice, which has been around since long before Christianity. In fact, many Pagan traditions surrounding the Winter Solstice – cutting mistletoe, gift giving, decorating trees – were absorbed into Christmas celebrations and continue to this day.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the Winter Solstice is on 21st December; the shortest day and the longest night. I always welcome its arrival as it marks the turning point of the year and means the days will once again start to lengthen. 

To celebrate, I made this card using a variety of products and – surprise, surprise – a whole lotta sponging. Actually, I used a brand new Stampin’ Up!® product from the upcoming January-June Mini Catalogue. It’s a set of three Blending Brushes which are just amazing for getting all the look of sponging with a lot less risk of smearing. For ease, I’m going to use the term ‘sponging’, even though I used the brushes.

To get the huge setting sun (or is it a rising moon?), I die-cut a large circle from a piece of scrap paper to leave the aperture template, then laid a separate curved hill on top. I gently sponged inside here using Daffodil Delight.

Next I used the circle of scrap paper to act as a mask on top of the yellow sun, so I could sponge around in Seaside Spray and Night of Navy to represent the sky.

On top of this I stamped the row of trees from Winter Woods. Something was missing, though – you can’t have a huge sun/moon casting light over trees without some shadows. So I hand-cut a long, narrow triangle from another piece of scrap paper and used this as a mask to sponge with some more Seaside Spray. I didn't worry about creating shadows of the foliage as I knew my words would be covering this area.

I inked up part of the Season’s Greetings stamp from Peaceful Boughs with a Night of Navy marker and used this to stamp towards the bottom. 

Next I used the Playful Alphabet Dies to cut out the word ‘solstice’ from some In Color Designer Series Paper in Seaside Spray (oops! This is the old design!) – first backing it with a foam adhesive sheet to give it dimension and make it easy to stick down. Spacing was something of an issue, as you can see, and there was only just enough room on my piece of cardstock. This wouldn’t be an issue in North America, as their card bases are slightly wider.

I finished off with some Seaside Spray Scalloped Linen Ribbon and some cut-out leaves using Beautiful Autumn, one of my favourite sets from the Aug-Dec Mini Catalogue. 

Inside I echoed the DSP and leaves from the front and added a greeting from Peaceful Boughs, which seemed perfect for the occasion.

I hope you like my Winter Solstice card and it has inspired you to create a project for different holidays. Please now visit the rest of the blogs in the hop to see some amazing projects from talented Stampin’ Up!® Demonstrators around the world.

If you would like to order any of the products shown here, please visit my online store and shop using the December host code SX4NGWRH.