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.