I have to admit that I wasn’t initially too excited about the Quilted Christmas Suite when I first looked through SU!’s holiday catalog.  There – I’ve confessed!  But, thankfully, everyone in the Stamp Club loved the suite and wanted to use it at our October meeting.  I am so glad they did because I am (literally) now in love with the suite.  It is gorgeous, fun, and very versatile!

As promised, the Quilted Christmas Suite is the next product group that I will focus on to live up to my motto – “One stamp set – Three designs – Endless possibilities”.  Below are pictures of the front and inside of my first design.

Don’t you just love it?  There are so many great elements to this card.

Here are directions and tips for making the card:

1. Make your card base from Real Red cardstock.  I grabbed a piece of Real Red cardstock from the Quilted Christmas Cardstock Pack.  It includes Real Red, Garden Green, and Lemon Lime Twist.  Cut the card base to 4 1/4″ x 11″, and score at 5 1/2″ on the 11″ side.  This will give you a top-folding card.
2. Use the square quilted flower design die from the Quilt Builder Framelits Die set to die cut a window in the front of the card.  Look at the first picture above to get an idea of where to put the die.
3. Let’s talk about the inside of the card first.  Cut a piece of Whisper White cardstock to 4″ x 5 1/4″.  This will be the main piece for the inside.  Stamp “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” from the Christmas Quilt stamp set on the bottom right of the Whisper White cardstock piece.  Use Real Red ink.
4. Stamp the large quilted flower design, using Real Red ink, onto a piece of Whisper White cardstock.  [Tip:  When you stamp images that have dotted lines, don’t push too hard on your block.  I always stamp with a MISTI and just tap the cover when I’m using dotted line stamps.]  Die cut the stamped image with the square die int he Quilt Builder Framelits set.
5. Grab your Quilted Christmas 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) collection and pick the piece that you want to use for the quilted flower.  You’ll just need one piece of paper since the DSP has complementary designs on both sides.  I absolutely love everything about this DSP!
6. Use the same die that you used in #2 above to cut out the pieces for your quilt piece.  Put the die close to the corner of the paper.  Important tip:  After you die cut pieces from one side of your DSP, flip the DSP over and die cut pieces from the other side.  This will ensure you have die cut the right pieces in two color combinations.  You’ll end up with die cut pieces for two quilted flowers.
7. To make sure you don’t lose any pieces, put the die cuts into a bowl or cup.  You’ll have squares and triangles die cut as well since those shapes are part of the die.  I chose not to include them in my card.  Adhere the die cut pieces to the stamped image you created in #4.  Tip:  Before gluing, I put the red pieces down first then added the green pieces to make sure I knew where each piece went.
8. You’re going to have about half the piece of DSP leftover.  From that leftover piece, cut a 3″ square.  Adhere your square quilt piece to the DSP square.  In my picture, you’ll see that I chose the green side of the DSP square to show behind my quilted piece.
9. Before you glue the inside pieces together, you need to line-up the quilted piece behind the window on the front of the card.  I used Post-It notes to attach the quilted piece behind the window.  At the same time, don’t glue the large Whisper White piece to the inside.  Use Post-It notes to tack that piece to the inside center.  Put glue on the backside of the quilted piece and close the card.  The quilted piece will be lightly tacked to the large Whisper White piece.  You can move the quilted piece until you get everything aligned.  The end result will be that your quilted piece is glued onto the Whisper White piece, and the quilted piece will be aligned with the window.
10. Emboss the complete inside of your card using the Quilt Top Textured Impressions Embossing Folder.  Below is a picture that will give you a better idea of what this looks like when it is embossed.  Gorgeous!!
11. Adhere the finished inside piece to the inside of your card.  We can now tackle the final touches to the front of the card.
12. Stamp “peace” from the Christmas Quilt stamp set onto Whisper White cardstock.  Use Real Red ink.  Die cut “peace” using the second largest oval die from the Stitched Shapes Framelits set.  Use the smaller end of a Real Red Stampin’ Write Marker to add faux stitching to the edges.
13. Cut a piece of DSP from the Quilted Christmas 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper collection to 1 1/2″ x 4 1/2″.  As you can see from the pictures, I chose to use the same green DSP as I used in the inside of the card.
14. Adhere the “peace” piece to the center of the DSP.  Emboss the combined piece using the Quilt Top Textured Impressions Embossing Folder.  Adhere the embossed piece to the bottom of the card front.  You’ll have some extra DSP on either side.  Cut the excess to get a straight edged finish.
15. The last piece is the spool of thread and needle.  Too cute!  They are made from dies in the Quilt Builder Framelits Dies set.  I die cut the spool from Crumb Cake cardstock and the needle from a piece of scrap (non-SU!) silver paper.  The thread is embroidery floss that matched the Real Red color.  Simply wind a small length of embroidery floss around the spool.  Finish by threading the needle.  Adhere with glue dots.

I hope you’ll check back to see the second design that I’ve created using this suite of products.  In the meantime, take a few minutes to look at the main products I used to create today’s card.  The products are pictures below.  Click on any picture, and you’ll go to my on-line store.

Happy stamping!
Laurie