The delicate pine branch die from Diemond Dies are so fun to emboss and layer to make lush holiday swags for cards or layouts. I made these four cards for senior center residents for my friend Kim’s (YT: KimboKreations) nursing home challenge, and I hope the seniors (whether men or women) will enjoy these gender neutral cards this coming holiday season.<\/p>\n

<\/a>For the card bases I used a large 12×12 sheet of holiday patterned paper (sorry I don’t recall the name–I’ve had it for years!) from my stash. On one of the\u00a0plainer backgrounds, I embossed “Happy Holidays” (from My Sentiments Exactly “Holiday Sentiments” stamps set) repeatedly at a diagonal. On another plain background card, I made cut out a little banner and embossed the sentiment on a piece of vellum. For the other two cards, I just let the dimensional swags I made top the white and silver foil backgrounds.<\/p>\n

<\/a>To create the swags, I die cut a lot of branches with the Diemond Dies Pine Branch Die<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0(which is one of the first Diemond Dies). \u00a0I used Recollections Sparkle Embossing Powder and Sparkle N Sprinkle Platinum Extra Fine Embossing Powder to add sparkle, shine and dimension haphazardly to the pine needle leaves–thinking of the way snow might land here and there on a branch but not coat it completely. \u00a0I varied the heights and lengths of a few pine branches and gathered them together at the bases with a bow.<\/p>\n

<\/a>For the paper bows, I used the medium size die set from the Diemond Dies Bows Die Set<\/a><\/span><\/span> to create a whimsical 3D paper bow. TIP: If you curl the loop sections and the center section with the edge of a bone folder (or any sharp edge like a scissors or the side of your desk), the bow will look more realistic and less flat. \u00a0To add a little detail, I also embossed the tail edges of the bows to match the pine branches they topped. \u00a0For the satin ribbon bows, I used my Craft-Dee-BowZ tool to make a double or triple loop bow with 1\/4″ wide red ribbon.<\/p>\n

Lastly for some cute little accents, I used the berries from the Diemond Dies Holly Leaves Die Set<\/a><\/span><\/span> to cut out faux enamel dots from red card stock. \u00a0To give them a nice shine, I coated them with Glossy Accents and adhered them to the card bases in clusters of three or in one case to cover the Art Glitter Glue that I used to adhere the vellum banner.<\/p>\n

The following is a process video of how I created two of these cards:<\/p>\n