JOY Christmas Sampler

The idea of a “sampler” was something I had always admired, but never tried my hand at. One lazy day I decided I was going to try and figure one out. I looked at a variety of them Pinterest and found a general layout that I liked and decided to tackle it.

The hardest part of this was sizing. Several of the images I looked at used the alphabet framelits, so I knew my top layer needed to be at least be 2” square. When I started to sketch my ideas out, I opted for  2-1/4” patterned paper with the two layers underneath being 1/8” larger than the one before it. Not wanting to squish everything into a smaller box, I went with a 9x9 shadow box frame and evenly spaced the images out using my T-square ruler. (I’m a self admitted perfectionist). As for the larger piece of patterned paper, the measurement for that is 5”x2-1/4”.

I say that the sizing was the hardest part because I was unable to find a sampler in a size and style that I wanted to make to simply copy and utilize their existing measurements. I wanted to use the word ‘JOY’ and had a sentiment that was a fitting compliment. From there I found patterned paper to use and die cuts and stamps to match the style. The only thing left was a sheet of 12x12 paper which I purchased from M’s to finish off my project.

Stamps:
Dashing Deer (Stamping Up)
Snowflake Sentiments (SU)

Paper:
Cherry Cobbler (SU)
Mossy Meadow (SU)
Very Vanilla (SU)
Gold Foil (SU)
Festive Farmhouse DSP (SU)

Ink:
Mossy Meadow (SU)
Early Espresso (SU)

Accessories:
Sizzix Big Shot (SU)
Detailed Deer Thinlits (SU)
Detailed Poinsettia Thinlits (SU)
Large Letter Framelits (SU)
Stitched Shape Framelits (SU)
Card Front Builder Thinlits (SU Retired)