I have committed to making cards monthly in order to have what I need by the end of the year so these are the ones I made this week!!! I started with the green decorative paper and die cut two stars (CB) from two of them (see bottom) to find out that because I was looking from the front (they have a clear back) I did not allow enough room between them and they cut into each other's spaces. The paper was affected by the die so I embossed them with a random dot embossing folder which worked well for disguising the texture added by the die cutting. To stabilize my backgrounds I cut two stars from each of the red polka dot backgrounds so I could insert them into the openings. I used packing tape which worked really well as they were secure all the way around. They seemed a little plain so I die cut some silver stars (SX) to put inside them which helped quite a bit. I did have to cut the tape at the top of the star to insert the ribbon which I secured to the back using double sided tape. I tied the bows using the rabbit ears method which works really well for making balanced bows. I adhered the bows using glue dots. I mounted these two to red card bases. For the next two sets I used gold glitter paper and gold gift wrap and was more careful when cutting the stars. I used red gros grain ribbon on those and mounted them to red cards. For the last of the green backgrounds I used a moire gold gift wrap to back the star openings and red satin ribbon for the hangers and bows which were mounted to red cards. Finally decided to use the green stars from the first set in the red polka dot backgrounds and added embossed silver stars (SU) to the centers of those along with green ribbon for the hangers and the bows before mounting them to pink cards. I think I like the double star once best!! I may consider adding some to the others and see if that works better than the plain large stars. For the moment I am leaving off greetings but I will audition a few of those and see if I find some that work well. Therese
