Vellum is a versatile craft product. You can use it to see through or into something, such as for “snow globe” or “shaker” cards. Vellum also can become a screen for something behind it, softening the impact of a bold pattern or giving a satin finish to shiny silver cardstock, such as with this card.

I love the shine and pattern of this silver cardstock and wanted to pair it with the beautiful stamped image, but stamping onto the cardstock didn’t allow the image to stand out enough. Vellum to the rescue! It cuts down on the high shine of the cardstock and showcases the image. To adhere the vellum without the adhesive being visible, I applied adhesive behind the image and where I placed my sentiment.

To add more depth, I layered the vellum and silver cardstock onto glittered, textured and patterned papers, added rhinestones and used dimensional adhesive on my sentiment piece.

Merry Christmas!

Here’s how to make it:

Cut a 3 1/2-by-6 1/4-inch piece of vellum. Stamp a winter-trees image (such as winter moon by Hero Arts) in vellum-friendly black ink (I used StazOn in jet black) close to the top of the vellum.

Allow the ink to dry. Trim this piece on the left and right sides to the edges of the image (with this stamp, the finished size will be 3 1/16 inches wide). Stamp a sentiment (mine says “wishing you a season of JOY and DELIGHT” and is by Savvy Stamps) in white ink (such as ColorBox Cat’s Eyes Queue Baby’s Breath collection in frost white) onto a piece of black cardstock.

Trim this piece to 3 1/2-by-3/4 inches. Trim its left end to a point.

Cut a 3 1/2-by-6 1/4-inch piece of shiny silver, linen-patterned cardstock (I used Hot Off the Press silver linen specialty cardstock) and adhere the vellum, centered, to it (I placed adhesive behind the image and 1 1/4-inches below that, where my sentiment will be placed). Cut a 3 3/4-by-6 1/4-inch piece of green textured cardstock and adhere the silver cardstock, centered, to it. Cut a 4-by-6 1/4-inch piece of green glitter cardstock (such as The Paper Studio glitter cardstock in dark green) and adhere the green cardstock, centered, to it.

Make a card from a 9-by-6 1/4-inch piece of black-and-white, damask-patterned cardstock (mine’s from the Black & White collection by Me & My Big Ideas). Adhere the layered piece, centered, to the card’s front. Using dimensional adhesive, adhere the sentiment piece 1 1/4 inches below the image (over the adhesive), lined up with the card’s right edge. Affix several small silver and green rhinestones to the image’s large tree.