Christmas Clothes Pins

This past weekend I attended my first "craft retreat." What an inspiring three days I had. I met new friends, reconnected with friends, laughed, ate, laughed, ate some more, and in general had a fabulous time.
One of the activities was to create something with the three elements we were given in our goodie bags. The theme for the retreat was "Camping." My elements were three mini-clothes pins. I thought and thought about what to create because it wasn't the beauty of the final product but how creatively could you incorporate your elements into your final product.

It was my first retreat so I was reluctant to bring too much because I didn't know how much room we had or how many projects I wanted to tackle. So, using what I brought with me I decided to hang some ornaments from a clothesline onto the front of card packet with envelopes I won in a drawing.

The base is Stampin' Up! card stock 5"x7", the dots were already on the paper. Next, I added a layer of dark brown under the branch and leaves from Memory Box (Mistletoe). Using the SU Christmas Ornaments stamp and die I stamped on brown with Whisper White and used white embossing powder for extra punch. I used the 3D Crystal Laquer to attach all of the clothes pins. Next, I used silver sparkle paper and a Martha Stewart snowflake punch and finally, I decided to add some gold to the mix with a die from Savvy to create the star. We were given SU baker's twine in our goodie bags and that was what I used for my clothesline. A Spellbinders corner die, a Swarovski crystal, and 3D Crystal Laquer on the red berries for a little extra texture finished the card.

There is a lot going on here but is isn't too busy because there is time for your eye to rest on each of the different elements. Sorry to say I didn't win the contest, but it sure was fun competing!

That's all for today...Get busy, make cards, and have fun!