Hello & happy Monday!

It’s crazy that Christmas is a week away, it does not feel like it in western Washington! It’s also feeling a bit weird because it will be my husband and I’s last holiday out here since we will be moving back home to Michigan early next year! All that hoopla has been what’s slowed me up with making and sharing my Christmas cards, and I’m sure it’s only going to get worse between now and March.

But no more thinking about all the packing and chaos ahead of me! Today were talking about another super cute bundle from Concord & 9th—Over the Rooftops. I will admit it, I am the biggest sucker what it comes to any village/house products (among other things). I don’t know what it is, but seeing them makes me want to aggressively throw my money at the companies that make them. Though they definitely can be a bit intimidating and overwhelming when it comes to color selections! But today I created two cards— an interactive one and a sort of faux shadowbox/arch one. Both are different from each other, but equally as cute!

A Fun Interactive Element!

This guy is super fun and super quick to create once you have all your bits die cut, not to mention the easy interactive feature really steps up the awe factor! For this card, I decided on a color palette of Cranberry, Poppy, Ballet Slipper, Tidepool, Juniper, and black. When building the houses, I did my best to use a couple of the colors on each house to pull that color palette together and make things harmonious, but this totally isn’t necessary!

So here are all the die cut details:

Left house: Ballet Slipper base, Tidepool roof and accents, Juniper door, Dove steps, black fence, Poppy bunting, and Evergreen wreaths with Poppy bows.
Center house: Poppy base, Ballet Slipper roof, Cranberry accents, Juniper banner, Tidepool door, Dove steps, black fence, Evergreen wreaths and Tidepool bows.
Right house: Juniper base, Cranberry roof, Tidepool door accent, Cranberry door, Dove steps, black fence, Poppy bunting, Evergreen wreaths with Poppy bows.

I die cut the snowbanks and hill out of C9 white, the road out of Cobblestone, and the sidewalk out of Pebble. The car was die cut out of Wheat cardstock, the accent strip out of C9 matte silver, the tree out of Evergreen, and a base out of black. The trees in the background were die cut out of Juniper, and the circles that make up the sky out of Powder and Midnight. Before moving on to assemble the card, I white heat embossed the ‘Merry Christmas to all’ and ‘…and to all a good night’ sentiments on two banners I cut out of black cardstock. I stamped the snowflake stamp from the stamp set on the Powder circle with white pigment ink, but went over it with white gel pen once it was dried to make it darker (I would have heat embossed, but I did this once it was assembled on the card).

Now onto assembly! First, cut the Midnight circle in half, then glue it onto one half of the Powder circle. Next, glue down the road (the thicker Cobblestone piece) on the bottom of the large snowy hill piece. From here, you can glue on the sidewalk (the thin Pebble piece), and then your constructed houses. I glued on the small snowbanks to the road, and then the car on the street. With everything (the exception being the trees, Santa silhouette, and sentiment banners) glued down, I was ready to create the interactive portion!

Concord & 9th sells mini brads on their website, and they are essential for the interactive portion! I lined up my circle behind my snowy hill scene on the center of my card base (I used a folded notecard here, but you could build this on a card front and adhere it just fine as long as you avoid the brad!), then when I was happy with how things looked, I held the circle in place and removed the snowy scene. I grabbed a pencil, then made a mark on my notecard where the circle opening in the middle of the sky circle was. I’m sure this sounds super confusing the way I described it, but I think if you’re looking at the pieces this will make sense! Once I had that circle marked, I moved the sky circle off my note card, opened the card, then took my pokey tool and poked a hole where I made that mark. From here, I put a brad through my sky circle, then through the front of my notecard and opened the metal pieces on the inside of the notecard to hold it all in place.

The rest of this is a breeze! I pulled out my Waffle Flower foam strips and placed foam on the back lower edges of my snowy scene. You have to be super careful here that where you put your foam won’t block the spinning of your sky, so try to keep it to a minimum and on the edges. Once I had everything secured, I added the trees to the scene, then the sentiment banners on the edges of the circle, as well as a black die cut of Santa and his sleigh. When adding things to the circle, be sure to test spin it to make sure the die cuts aren’t blocking it from spinning, liquid glue will be your friend here! To finish that card off, I stamped the ‘turn’ stamp to give the recipient the hint to spin the circle if they didn’t notice it was interactive. So cute, right?! I promise it’s really easy to put together even though it seems intimidating. Laura Bassen also made this video if you need to see if being assembled! I did film a video for these cards, but I’m not sure I’ll have it up in time, unfortunately.

Faux Shadowbox Village

If you don’t feel like fussing with interactive bits, this card is for you! Not only can you just build your scene on a die cut arch and pop it on a card similarly to how I did with the last card, but you can also frame a scene out with an arch! I honestly could have made this a shaker card if I had put acetate behind my white panel and filled it with faux snow/glitter shaker fill, and that would have been so cute!

The color palette I chose for this card was inspired by the two sweater cards I shared yesterday, but with a little bit of a twist: Briar Rose, Ballet Slipper, Matcha (TSM), Fern (TSM), Honeycomb, and Stardust. Here are all the die cut details:

Left house: Matcha base, Fern house details, Briar Rose door, Mushroom roof, Cobblestone steps, black fence, Lemongrass wreaths with Carnation bows.
Center house: Briar Rose base, Ballet Slipper house details, Juniper door, Mushroom roof, Cobblestone steps, black fence, Lemongrass banner, Lemongrass wreaths with Carnation bows.
Right house: Honeycomb base, Stardust house accents, Ballet Slipper door, Briar Rose bunting, Mushroom roof, Cobblestone steps, black fence, Lemongrass wreaths with Carnation bows.
All of the houses had a layer a vellum behind them to frost the windows a bit

The road was die cut out of Cobblestone, the sidewalk out of Pebble, the snowbanks and snowy hill out of C9 white, the car out of black, Wheat, C9 matte silver, and Juniper. The trees on the hill were die cut out of Juniper as well.

Before assembling everything, I ran an A2-sized piece of Powder cardstock through my die cut machine with the Snowfall card front die. I thought this would make a great backdrop and sky! To make my arch cut out, I pulled out my Essential Arches dies from Ellen Hutson. Unfortunately, these dies aren’t available anywhere since Ellen shut down her store, but any arch dies should do! I figured out which arch would fit the snowy hill piece as close as possible, then cut it out of C9 white cardstock. I pulled out my Waffle Flower foam strips and covered the back of the white arched panel, then stuck it down to the Powder panel. This gave me my opening to build the scene, so I build it similarly to the last card, but this time I popped the houses up on thin foam squares. Since the houses were on foam, I also put the car on foam squares, but used thick foam squares so it stood apart from the houses. I glued down the trees to the snowy hills, then got to work on my sentiment. I went back and forth on what I wanted it to be for a while but decided on the ‘it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ sentiment from the coordinating stamp set. That finishes this one off!

I love how these cards turned out, but especially the second one! Those colors just make me so dang happy! Which one do you like more?! Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today, I hope to catch you tomorrow when I share two cards I made with the Christmas Cloche bundle! 😊

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