Hello there Joy Clair Friends! Today I'm sharing three cards I created for the Joy Clair Christmas in July celebration! I'm thrilled to add this card to my Christmas card stash and I'm happy to say I am now three cards closer to my yearly goal! WOO HOO! Joy Clair is offering a great prize at the end of this event, so make sure to check out the Design Team posts all week! 
This card features the Out of this World stamp set. I enjoy using non-traditional stamp sets to create my Christmas Cards and after thinking about the phrase "Joy to the World", I imagined how I could represent this on a card. I shuffled through my Joy Clair stamp collection and found the Out of this World stamp set and thought those planets would make some cool hanging ornaments! Well, that set the ball rolling and I stamped the images onto white cardstock and then worked to create the ornament tops for them. I placed a little piece of white cardstock over the top of the planets and then used a pencil to sketch a little top that would fit. When I was pleased with the results, I traced over the designs with a Staedtler permanent pen and attached it to the planet with glue. I cut around the top so that they would blend in with the stamped image. There is a slight line, but if you squint hard enough, you can't see it. LOL
After cutting out the "ornaments", I colored them using Leisure Arts Watercolor Pencils. Once done, I applied some clear glaze and microfine glitter to make them sparkly.
After they dried, I punched a hole in each ornament and threaded them onto some black twine. I moved on to the card base next!
To create the card base, I diecut the Reverse Confetti Cuts Stitched Squares out of a white card base and used the cut out to create a frame. I watercolored the frame with the watercolor pencils and then mounted some gold cardstock behind the cut out on the card base. I doodled a design around the oval and then I mounted the "frame" wonky style onto the front of the card and attached the ornaments. To finish the card off, I applied some silver pearls for added shine!
I hope this project inspires you to get inky and helps you get one step closer to your Christmas Card goals!
If you're interested in learning how I created a specific card pictured below, make sure to click on the link to direct you there.
