Simon Says Stamp | Christmas Joy Card + Our Trip to Milan

Last week we took an unplanned trip to Milan. I love adventures like this. Not much preparation, not much waiting (and thus less anxiety), just up and go. We traveled a lot before Covid, both for work and pleasure. When you live in Europe, traveling is easy. You can get to pretty much anywhere in 2-3 hours.

I also love to travel this time of year, as everything is decorated for Christmas. I’ve been dreaming of a Christmas trip for the past few months now, and I feel so fortunate we were able to go. It seems like countries are closing down again and, probably, there won’t be much travel in the coming weeks.

We are all vaccinated, and it allowed us to enter Italy without any problems or quarantines. Every place we went checked our green pass (vaccination certificate) upon entry. I enjoyed walking the streets of Milan, looking at the Holiday window displays and, of course, shopping & food. We were in Minal just for 3 days, and to make things easier, we booked a 3-day hop-on-hop-off bus tour, which allowed us to travel the city easily.

The weather was lovely, although a bit cold for prolonged walks, but still we enjoyed it. It was a fantastic trip (despite all the bickering, but you can’t avoid that when traveling with family). We were hoping to travel to Germany at the end of January for the Creativeworld show, but it seems that won’t be happening due to all of the new restrictions.

But let’s go back to carmaking. Today’s card is simple, but it packs a lot of wow. I used Simon’s Glitter Gel + Heat Resistant Acetate.

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CARD DETAILS

I love the new Glitz Glitter Gels from Simon. I used aqua on this card and I already mentioned how fabulous these are. They don’t take a lot of time to dry, which is a huge plus for an impatient person such as myself.

I used the red gel on red cardstock for a tone-on-tone look and added some Lipstick Red ink blending around the edges to darken them a bit. Such a dramatic effect!

When I have a background like this, I don’t want to cover any of it. Usually, I’d go for a skinny strip sentiment, but this time, since I recently discovered heat-resistant acetate, I decided to use a die-cut circle to house a slightly bigger sentiment for this card.

I die-cut JOY from gold glitter cardstock and white fun foam (twice from foam) using Spellbinders alphabet dies. I’ve had those in my stash since Spring and I’ve been meaning to use them. A double layer of fun foam was used to pop the circle up. The 2nd part of the sentiment was heat embossed in Antique Gold embossing powder, sentiment comes from the Inside Christmas Greetings set.

Lastly, I added a few gold gems and paired the card with a red envelope. Love the result!

SUPPLIES

I’m listing the products I used below. Click on the link to go directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for your support!

Simon Says Clear Stamps Inside Christmas Greetings Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Stencil Winter Floral Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Simply Perfect Alphabet Etched Dies Shop at: SSS	Therm O Web Simon Says Stamp Rainbow Mini Set of 6 Glitz Glitter Gels Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp White A2 Top Fold Scored Cards Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Envelopes Schoolhouse Red Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Lipstick Red Cardstock Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Cardstock Gold Glitter Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Premium Heat Resistant Clear Acetate Shop at: SSS	Mini MISTI Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Blending Brush Set Large Shop at: SSS	Tim Holtz Distress Palette Knife 2 Pack Shop at: SSS
Simon Says Stamp Embossing Ink Pad Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Lipstick Red Ink Pad Shop at: SSS	Ek Success Powder Tool Applicator Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Antique Gold Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS
White Fun Foam 12 Pack 9 x 12 Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Gold Mix Color Essential Gems Shop at: SSS	Wagner Precision Heat Tool Shop at: SSS