FINAL CHRISTMAS CARD DESIGNS

I got inspired by a beginner Cricut class I took at the local scrapbook store to try my hand at using my Cricut to make the final batch of Christmas cards.  It was fun and it was easy to use.  The first card I made was actually an adaptation of a card shown in the manual that came with the Cricut cartridge Winter Woodlands.  I changed the size of the card and had to make a number of construction changes due to the card size change. It is the card on the left with the reindeer.  It was fun to do but too time consuming with all the detail gluing of the Seasons Greetings sentiment. The word "greetings" is in three pieces.  I tried using my Xyron but it left all sorts of little adhesive pieces in the narrow spaces.  So I only made a few of these and went on to try another design that would be simpler to produce.   The second card had more steps, but was actually easier. The only detailed gluing was the pine branch and it was all one piece.  I got to play with lots of toys making this card.  The Cricut cartridge used for it was Winter Frolic.  I used it for the ornament and the branch.  Then I also got to use my Cuttlebug and an embossing folder on the background of the card.  I use a folder that was made up of all different snowflakes.  I also used a Nestabilities label die to cut out the Merry Christmas sentiment. Lots of fun and the card went together quickly.  Oh...I also got to do some easy embossing. The ornament was to be cut in two pieces if you wanted a hanger of a different color than the ornament itself. I didn't want to do that becasue it meant more little detail gluing of the hanger cut over top of the ornament.  Instead I pressed the hanger portion of the ornament onto my silver ink pad and then embossed that with silver embossing powder.  They really look like metal hangers this way and it was very easy to do. 

Now I declare myself finished making Christmas cards.  I still have some writing and mailing to do but at least they are all made! 

QUICK AND EASY CHRISTMAS CARDS

As promised yesterday here is a photo of the quick and easy Christmas cards I made.  I used my Cuttlebug and my new Tim Holtz Christmas embossing folder.  The card stock I used was core'dinations.  It is a cardstock that is one color on the outside and a different color on the inside, or in the core.  By using this cardstock I could add interest to a very simple card through lightly sanding the embossing which reveals the lighter core color.
Two of the cards shown here have embroidered embellishments (the snowman and a snowflake) that I salvaged from a Christmas basket liner that was being thrown away.   A third card has a dove and olive branch punched out of card stock and then covered in Dazzel Versamark ink.  I used Frost.  The final card is simple the embossed words "Seasons Greetings" colored with a glittery Gelly Roll pen.
I made a bout a dozen of these simple cards and then boredom set in. So off to design some different quick and easy cards.  This time using my Cricut and some of the Christmas themed cartridges I have.  Those are to be shown in a later post so stay tuned.  Then I think I  am done with this years Christmas card making and it will be on to other things crafty.

ONE STAMP THREE CARDS!

It is less than three weeks to Christmas and I am deep into making, signing, and mailing out Christmas cards. I am having more fun doing it this year than I have had in a very long time.  Last year I mailed out very few.  This year...well...suffice it to say I think I am doing my part to keep the US Postal Service out of bankruptcy! 

I had some cards left that I made in past years, and I had the few Christmas cards I made at the stamp camp several weeks ago.  I've found a scrapbooking shop here in The Villages that carries some rubber stamps its called She Scrapbooks.  I found a really cute snowman stamp when I was in there the other day and I used it to make a lot of my Christmas cards.  Being that I get easily bored I can not bring myself to make all my cards the same.  So here are three different designs I came up with using the one stamp. 

I also found a package that had 4 different Christmas embossing folders from Tim Holtz.  I used two of them on these cards.  One is the full card background on the red card with the snowman in the lacy oval die cutout which was made with a Nestability die. The other is a strip embossing of snowflakes which I than colored over using a GellyRoll glitter pen.

On all three of the cards I added a  hat (the snowman stamp is a bare headed snowman) that I had in another Christmas stamp set.  The hats were colored and cut out and then placed on the snowman's head with a Stampin' Up Dimensional.

These were all fun cards to make and I did four of each style, but they were way too time consuming to make as many as I needed.  There fore I needed a much simpler design.  Watch for it tomorrow. 

CARDS, CARDS AND MORE CARDS

A few weeks ago I attended a Stamp Camp here in The Villages. I've helped put on Stamp Camps before, when I was a Stampin' Up demonstrator, but this was the first I took part in as a participant.  What fun!  I made 15 cards in 3 hours!  Now that's what I call some serious stamping and card making.  There were actually 4 hours allowed for the stamp camp, but I was off schedule and got there an hour late.  No problem I got everything done. 

Most of the cards were designed to be either Birthday, Thanksgiving or Christmas cards.  I couldn't do much to adapt the Christmas cards to become the Thank You cards I needed to send out, but was able to adapt all the Thanksgiving and all but one of the Birthday cards to be what I needed. So it was a very productive day for me and time well spent.  Of course it was great fun!

The Thank You cards have all been sent out.  I hope those who received them enjoyed getting them as much as I enjoyed making them.  As for the Christmas cards I have a start on the cards I need to send out in a few weeks.  I can hardly believe it is time to send out Christmas cards. 

I very much enjoy the process of coming up with a card design, but when a large number of cards are needed in a short period of time Stamp Camps are a wonderful thing.  I look forward to attending more of them.

My next stamping event will be this Friday.  It is not a Stamp Camp, but just a time for me to take a project I want to work on and stamp and make cards with others who share in this passion.  I am hoping to spend time making more cards for Christmas at this.  They will be my own design and probably mass produced.  I have a lot of mailing to do this Christmas season!

GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS

Thanksgiving is over which means though the calendar says it's still fall the season says its time to get ready for winter and Christmas.  Here is a new Christmas card I made last week.  The layout is quite simple, but I think it needed to be simple to highlight the background I created.

For the background I used my Cuttlebug and the snowflake embossing folder.  In order to get a nice deep embossed image I used GinaK's heavyweight (120lb) white card stock.  The debossed image became the right side of my background.  This was so I could roll the blue ink over the cardstock using my hard rubber brayer. You can't tell in the picture, but the while layer behind the snowflakes layer has the edges painted with icicles stickles to give the sparkle of new snow when the sun shines on it.  I colored the snowman and birds with my copics and added liquid applique to the hat brim and pompom.

It was a fun card to do and really not all that difficult.

MORE CHIRSTMAS

Halloween is over and it is still a bit early for Christmas at least for Christmas decorations and carols, but shopping and making items for Christmas has definitely begun so I am more and more thinking Christmas cards. This is one that I made for SCS's November mini VSN. Unfortunately, I am not sure if I will be able to do the full VSN next weekend. I'll have to wait and see what this week brings. Anyway I digress, back to my card.

I used my new SU stamp set Scandinavian Seasons. I think this set is absolutely gorgeous. Especially when it is embossed with gold. Each of the four images in the set is elegant, but I think the tree is my favorite. I also have the coordinating wheel, Scandinavian. I haven't had time to use it yet, but plan to soon.

This really is a very simple card. The embossing is pretty basic. When I emboss with the metalics I always stamp with the same metallic ink so in this case I stamped the tree with gold encore ink and then embossed it with gold embossing powder. The gold edging on the rectanges is using the Kylon gold leafing pen.

CARDS FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Well it turned out to be a stamping day. No sewing today.

It's now November. Halloween is over and we are rapidly moving towards Thanksgiving and Christmas. A co-workers asked me to design a Christmas card for her using the Christmas stamps she has. Last week she gave me her stamps and today I decided to play around with them and see what I could come up with.

I was a bit frustrated because I didn't have any of the Christmas designer papers to play with and I really would have like to use some of them. But I had to work with what I have that is not retired since if she likes my design she needs to be able to purchase the supplies needed to make them. I decided that I didn't want to just give here one design. What if she didn't like it???? So I decided to increase the odds that I would do something she might like and did three different cards with several different sets that she has. Here is what I came up with.

The first card used a set that SU has retired. It's called Peaceful Wishes. I used Mellow Moss card stock for the base of the card and rolled it with a snowflake wheel in Mellow Moss to make a background. I punched the bottom edge of the front of the card with the scallop boarder punch. The other card stock colors I used were Riding Hood Red and Always Artichoke. The sentiment "Peaceful Wishes I embossed in gold and the pine cone I stamped in Chocolate Chip craft Ink and embossed with clear powder. I did the same with the holly sprig, but stamped it with Old Olive craft ink and then put in small red brads for the berries. The ribbon is the Mellow Moss taffeta ribbon.

Card number two also uses a stamp from the Peaceful Wishes stamp set. This is the full holly branch stamp. I once again used the Riding Hood Red card stock as an accent color this time placing it against a card base of Kiwi Kiss. To make a background for this card I used a snowflake stamp (of unknown origins) and randomly stamped it around in versa mark ink then embossed the whole card front with Iridescent Ice. This give the card a sparkly festive look. Unfortunately it doesn't show up in the scanned image. The holly sprig is stamped on white card stock in Old Olive and I colored over the berries with a Real Red marker. Then I put little drops of Crystal Effects to give a bit of shine and dimension. The Merry Christmas sentiment is embossed in silver. Both the sentiment and the holly sprig element are raised on dimensionals.

Finally for the third card I went with a color scheme other than the traditional red and green. This is basically blue and amethyst. For some reason this card did not scan well at all. (One of these days in my free time, HAHA, I need to work on making my light box to take photos in.) The card base here is Bashful Blue and again I stamped the small snowflakes in Versamark and embossed with Iridescent Ice. The set used for this is Loads of Love which has been around forever! I had to use masking to get the lady in the cab and the tree in the pickup bed. The tag that the pick-up is stamped on is glossy card stock stippled with Bashful Blue, Almost Amethyst, and Perfect Plum inks. It is edged with a silver leafing pen. This really did not scan well at all! If I have time tomorrow I may try and take a photo in daylight to see if it comes out better. I colored the truck with markers. The ribbon was white taffeta ribbon that I ran across the Almost Amethyst pad to color. Inside the card I stamped "Merry Christmas"

So I don't know which if any Nancy may like, let alone choose to make for her family cards, but I had fun making Christmas cards and once again making a mess of my stamping room! Just out of curiosity let me know which one you like the best. We'll see how your choices compare with Nancy's.