Christmas Cards 2018

Christmas cards are one of the occasions that I love to create cards for. 

I've downsized my card list considerably. I used to attempt to make every card I sent out different. This year I decided to do something different for me. I created a small amount of one card design and then moved on to another design. 

I created these wreaths but changed up the background paper for each card. I didn't purchase any new Christmas cardstock this year. I just used what I had on hand. All of the cards shown below with the exception of the snowflake cards use Tim Holtz Idea-ology Paper Stash Tidings cardstock. I've had it for awhile and I love it. It's pretty much used up. I'll have to see if I can find another pad of it or see what other Christmas cardstock Tim Holtz has available. I love his products because they are so vintage. 

For my wreaths I die cut circles using the Double Stitched Circles from Our Daily Bread. All of the greenery was die cut using Sizzix Thinlits products. I used Tim Holtz Alterations Retro Merry Christmas, Holiday Words: Script - Christmas and Garden Greens. I used some miscellaneous poinsettia's that I picked up last year at Hobby Lobby. 

I did make my own poinsettia's using a Sizzix die. After I had them all together and I had sprinkled some Papericious Frosting Powder on them, I didn't like them. I just set them aside for another project. 

I used glitter cardstock for the sentiments. 

After the wreaths had been assembled I splattered them with Perfect Pearls. This card was my favorite!

For the next card I used the same paper. 

I heat embossed the sentiments using Hero Arts Gold and Silver embossing powder. 

All of the sentiments are from the Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Mini Doodle Greetings stamp set.

I bought this set and the larger set last year and this is the first time I've used them!

I added a strip of Tim Holtz Idea-ology gold deco tape to each card. 

For the greenery on my cards I used Concord and 9th's Take A Bough Die. 

I used Rangers Tim Holtz Distress collage medium that I spread on with a brush and then sprinkled on frosting powder from Papericious. I first saw this stuff at a stamp show I went to this past summer at the Heartfelt Creations booth. The poinsettia is from Hobby Lobby. 

This card again uses the same paper as the two cards shown above.

For the sentiment I diecut Merry Christmas using the Sizzix Tim Holtz Alterations Retro Christmas die. The greenery is Holiday Greens and Garden Greenery. The same dies I used above on the wreath card. For both cards I added Ranger Ruby Red Liquid Pearls to the Kraft colored cardstock. I again spritzed perfect pearls over the greenery. 

For my snowflake cards I heat embossed snowflakes using the Simon Says Stamp Lots of Snowflakes stamp set. I stamped them with Distress Oxide ink in evergreen bough and then used Hero Arts clear embossing powder. 

I cut a strip of patterned cardstock from a paper pad by The Paper Studio called Old World Winter.

I added a strip of Tim Holtz Idea-ology gold deco tape.

The stamp and die are from WPlus9 called Hand Lettered Holiday. 

I cut three Merry die cuts. Using one I added VersaMark several times and kept heat embossing it with Hero Arts gold embossing powder until I was satisfied with how it looked. I then adhered three die cuts together. I then stamped the Christmas sentiment and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. 

I happened to be up in Plymouth last Saturday so I popped into Anchor Paper.

I found this die from Hero Arts called Snowflakes & Ornaments Fancy Die. 

There's another piece to the die so that you can make the snowflake look like an ornament.

I chose not to use that piece for this card. 

I watercolored two pieces of cardstock. One with Distress ink in candied apple and one in mowed lawn for each card. I die cut the circle snowflake out of the candied apple cardstock and then adhered it to the mowed lawn cardstock. 

I then die cut three circles for each card using white cardstock and the double stitched circles die from Our Daily Bread. After adhering them together I added them to the front of the card piece around the snowflakes.

I added a few silver sequins to the front of each card and they were done!

I still have a few cards that I'm working on but this is the majority of the cards I made this year. 

I'll post any others I send out in another post. 

Thanks for taking the time to stop by!

Hello Friend

I have another card for some challenges today! I was actually planning to use this card for the Color Throwdown challenge. After I had published my post and linked to all the challenges I realized I hadn't linked to the one I was originally going to! I thought no big deal, I'll just create a new card since I still had some time.

I had a whole list of challenges to link to and you can only link so many to some of the challenges. Some are unlimited. I tend to try to only link to one or up to three per card. If I had unlimited crafting time I would create one card per challenge, but I don't always have that kind of time unfortunately.

I used a Prima stencil with my Clarity brushes and some Distress Oxide ink to craft my background. I stamped the sentiment with Versafine onyx black ink heat embossed clear embossing powder. All supplies are listed below.

Color Throwdown #458

Addicted To Stamps and More! Challenge #257

Craft Stamper Magazine: Anything Goes Stamping

I've linked my card to the three challenges above. Please take time to check them out. There are some beautiful cards on each blog that their design teams have created. 

Supplies:

Distress Oxide Inks: twisted citron, fossilized amber, candied apple

Prima: Flourish Stencil

Our Daily Bread Designs: double stitched rectangles

Plus 9: Hand Lettered Hello stamp set

Doodle Bug Designs Sprinkles: beetle black, limeade, bumblebee

Thanks for Stopping by!

Thanks So Very Much

 

This is a second generation print that I made while playing around with my Brusho Crystal Colors a few weeks ago. One of the cards I made can be seen here. I still have another print that I have to create a card with. I slowly make my card panels into cards. I don't always know what type of sentiment I want to use. I let them sit around until one day I look at them and know exactly what I want to use. 

For this panel I took the stencil that was already full of color and pressed my panel onto it. I think it looks beautiful even if you can't make out what the original stencil look like. I like all the randomness of color. I think it made a gorgeous background. All supplies are listed below. 

Again I die cut three of the word thanks and adhered them together. I seem to be doing this with all my word dies now. I really love how it adds dimension. I also heat embossed the sentiment that I stamped.

Supplies:

Cardstock

Stamp - WPlus9 - Hand Lettered Thanks
Brusho Crystal Colours - Lemon, Rose Red, Orange
Bling - Doodlebug Design Inc Sprinkles - Beetle Black Assortment
Die - Echo Park - Sentiments Word Die Set
Stencil - Hero Arts - Large Flower Stencil

Thanks for stopping by!

CAS(E) this Sketch #235

I love this week's sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch! 

I'm updating this post because I'm linking my card to the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge #78 too! I always check their challenges but somehow missed this one and my card fits in perfectly.

When I opened my email this afternoon and saw this sketch I couldn't wait to get home and create my card. I knew exactly what I was going to use! I have a ton of scraps that I have cut off the ends of panels I've used for other cards. I knew they'd be perfect!

I like that this is such a simple design. Less is more and I'm really starting to love making CAS cards more and more.

Distress oxide inks were used on the original card panels that I cut the strips from. Since these were in my scrap pile, I don't remember what colors I used. 

 

The sentiment used on this card is from Simon Says Stamp.

 

Because I loved the sketch so much and I had the scraps, I decided to make a second card.

The sentiment on this card is from Plus9.

Be sure to stop by the CAS(E) this Sketch blog. Their Design Team created some beautiful cards!

Supplies:

Cardstock

Distress Oxide Inks

Sentiment - Simon Says Stamp - Uplifting Thoughts

Sentiment - WPlus9 - Hand Lettered Thanks

Thanks for stopping by!

A Birthday Hello

Today's card is for the Simply Create Too Challenge - Use Flowers. I made some panels this past  weekend using the large flower stencil from Hero Arts. For the color I used Brusho Crystal Colours and I love how bright and cheery this turned out! The sentiment is from WPlus9 and the word die is from Echo Park. All supplies are listed below. 

I die cut the word three times and adhered it together for dimension. 

Supplies:

Cardstock

Stamp - WPlus9 - Hand Lettered Hello
Die - Echo Park - Sentiments Word Die Set
Die - Taylored Expressions - Stitched Banner Stacklets
Bling - Doodlebug Designs Sprinkles - Bumblebee assortment
Stencil - Hero Arts - Large Flower Stencil
Brusho Crystal Colours - Lemon, Rose Red, Orange

Thanks for stopping by!

Stenciled Cards

I was able to finish my cards this evening. Actually one was done, I just had to stamp the sentiment on the card below. The process of making them is exactly the same as the cards I posted yesterday. You can see them here. The only difference is some of the products. 

For the card above I used the hand lettered thanks stamp set and matching die from WPlus9. Distress oxide inks used on this card are peacock feathers, fossilized amber and twisted citron. I added Nuvo crystal drops for the embellishments.

This thanks you card uses a stamp set from Simon Says Stamp called Thanks for Being There. I stamped everything with versatile onyx black ink and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder. Distress oxide inks used were broken china and wilted violet. 

Something I noticed that was interesting is on the large thanks stamp not all of the embossing powder embossed. It's fine on the other images. I have to wonder if the shimmer spray had something to do with it since the images is so large. 

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Smile & Hello

 

Today I pulled out a stencil I bought from Hero Arts called Graphic Patterns Stencil Pair. I'm not sure how old it is as I picked it up at a stamp show I just went to.  It may be a little older, but it's new to me. I create four stenciled panels. Since there are two stencils I used each stencil to make two panels using different colors of distress oxide inks. For the card above I used salty ocean and cracked pistachio. Fossilized amber and picked raspberry were used for the card below.

I used an Echo Park die called sentiments word die set for the first card. There are five dies in the set. The sentiments are: enjoy, thanks, hello, smile and today. For the other part of the sentiment I used a stamp set from Simon Says Stamp called choose happy.

After I stenciled each panel, I spritzed some water onto each panel to let the ink activate. I then misted some sheer shimmer spritz by Imagine crafts over each panel. The photos don't capture the shimmer on the cards, but it looks really cool. 

The card above uses a die from WPlus9 and the sentiment is from their matching stamp set called hand lettered hello. For each card I diecut the smile and hello dies three times and adhered them together. I also heat embossed the sentiments using clear and white embossing powder. On the second card I used ebony black Nuvo crystal drops. 

I'll post the other two cards in another blog post. 

Thanks for stopping by!

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Card Swap Pals

I belong to quite a few craft related groups on Facebook. The newest group I joined I learned about through a group called Stamping Enablers. The group is called Card Swap Pals. I like swapping with others but I just don't do well if there is a theme as I really struggle with the constraints of that. I like to be able to just create whatever strikes my fancy. With this group you are assigned four swap pals and you can send all of them the same card or each something different and whatever type of card you want. This type of swap is right up my alley. Since this was my first time I decided to send four different cards. 

I want to back up a minute to the group I mentioned called Stamping Enablers. This group is by far one of the best groups I have ever joined! The group has grown to over 4200 members in a short amount of time. I have been in the group since it started. There are so many knowledgeable and wonderfully talented crafters from all over the world in this group. It's been a joy to be involved with such a wonderful people. You can join it by clicking here.

I like to create all kinds of random card fronts and then when I have a pile I make cards with them. This seems to work for me since I never really know what I want to make when I sit down and start crafting. It's also easier for me if I go craft with others. I don't feel like I have to get something done. 

The first card for one of my swap partners I created using a Tim Holtz layering stencil called wildflower. I used PaperTrey Ink white cardstock and I used worn lipstick distress ink. The sentiment and die cut is from WPlus9 called Hand Lettered Hello stamp set and Die. I stamped the hello sentiment with distress ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder and then die cut it. The sentiment "a note to say"was also stamped with distress ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I used Cloud 9 Design rain drops for my bling. I matted the image using DCWV canvas.

This card was created using using the smooching technique. I saw this technique from an email newsletter I received from Kristina Werner. Here's the link to her blog post. This is a fun technique and I know I'll be using it a lot! The die cut and sentiment are both from Wplus9 called Hand Lettered Thanks. I heat embossed the sentiment with black embossing powder. The You die was cut using foam. The bling is Hero Arts Hues Decor. I used PTI cardstock for my base and watercolor cardstock for the smooching. The blue mat cardstock is by Recollections. I don't remember what distress inks I used for this card.

 

Again I used the smooching technique for this card. I don't remember what distress inks I used. The sentiment is from Unity Stamps called Storms Make Deeper Roots. I heat embossed the sentiment with white embossing powder. The base is PTI cardstock and the mat is by DCWV called The Jeweled Colored Cardstock Mattock. I also used watercolor cardstock.

This next card that was sent off to one of my swap partners is a technique I saw on the blog Pine Is Here. This was my first attempt and I loved it! I need to explore it a little more and go through my stamps to find more that will work. I used Hero Arts Delicate Leaf Cluster for the images. I heat embossed with white embossing powder. The distress ink I used is peeled paint. The die cut was cut from foam and is from Hero Arts called Thanks Stamp & Cut. I just used some pearls I had in my stash of supplies. Cardstock and base is from PTI. 

That's it for now. Time to start working on my swap cards for next month! I'll post the cards I receive.

Thanks for stopping by!