Classic Christmas

It's the most wonderful time of the year - and Christmas is coming up quickly! I'm back with another of my club Christmas cards. The inspiration for this card came from a card I found in an old Stampin' Success magazine (that's the publication SU sends its demonstrators, and it's always amazing). I'm submitting this for the Pink Elephant inspiration challenge.

 

I used a very traditional color scheme: Real Red, Old Olive, Crumb Cake, Baked Brown Sugar, and Whisper White. The image is from the hostess set Warmth & Wonder, colored with markers to omit the "noel" sentiment. I wanted to add this cute little banner (the die comes with one of the flip card thinlit sets) and the sentiment from More Merry Messages. Behind the cardinal I punched a wide oval and layered that onto a window frame die-cut, which is pierced with the piercing template.

 

For my background I used Crumb Cake card stock embossed with the poinsettia folder, over a label die-cut that I cut into two pieces in order to spread the color across the whole card base. The embossed panel hides the cut so it's easy-peasy! I added two very thin strips of red card stock and two candy dots as embellishments. I often keep my Christmas cards mostly flat so they are easy to mail, and this one works perfectly!

 

Thanks for visiting and I hope you are enjoying the beauty of the holidays this week!

Merry Little Christmas

Hi there! Are you in the Christmas spirit? I have to confess I had a bit of a tough time getting going, with Thanksgiving being right before everyone seemed to just fall into Christmas. But once we put up our tree, and we got some snow on the ground (just a little - not too much, yet) I started feeling that Christmas glow.

I'm making more Christmas cards this week for my club to stamp this weekend. They really enjoyed the last round and I'm looking forward to sharing more designs with them. This is the first one, and it was inspired by a card I saw in last year's holiday catalog. I'm doing three challenges with this card: Mojo Monday sketch, SUO Challenges (nontraditional Christmas), and CASology (snowflakes).

I'm not sure how I ended up with these colors - I wanted blue and chose Night of Navy, then in looking for something to put with it I just landed on Soft Suede. I think I like it! The main panel is from the holiday stamp set called Merry Little Christmas. I colored it with markers, then cut it out with the Chalk Talk die, then finally added the ornamental accents with the Stamp-a-ma-jig. It was easy to center them using the die-cut shape as a guide.

I hunted through everything I had looking for something to layer behind my tag. In the end I'm featuring a new product that will be available in January in the new spring catalog. It's called a Tag Topper punch and we have two coming out - the other one does a traditional angled tag. I just punched both ends to make a shape that fit my stamped panel. The card stock going into the punch is cut at 2" (actually I found I needed to shave just a hair off of that) and for this piece I cut the length at 3 3/8". Pretty sweet - I love finding little tricks to get my layers!

Another new product in the spring catalog is the scallop embossing folder. For the rest of my card I used navy dotted paper, two Festive Flurry snowflakes (I decorated one with the chalk marker), natural trim, white baker's twine, and a navy button. One more tip for you: to keep my white snowflake from sticking off the edge of the card, I cut a notch in one of the points and then hid that behind the ribbon.

What do you think of the nontraditional Christmas look? Of the two other cards I have planned as of now, one will be more traditional, and the other one ... won't! I like to mix it up sometimes! But you'll have to check back for those. In the meantime thanks for stopping by!

Keepin' it simple, Christmas style

I'm doing a couple Christmas cards with my club for November and December, since my busy schedule isn't going to allow me to hold a Christmas card buffet this year. (So sad...) I told them I'd have at least one simple Christmas card, and lucky for them I had time to make two. I thought I would share how they turned out.

This first one is my very first attempt at the thinlits flip cards. I find myself stumped as to how to decorate this, so I left it pretty simple. I'm open to suggestions for what I could add, though! I'm submitting this to SUO Challenges since I used the Festive Flurry stamp set.

 

 

 For this next one I took the photo at the Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge as my starting point.



 

I used the extrafine gold glitter to add some sparkle to my tree and then embossed the gold foil paper to go behind it. This beautiful tree is featured in the set Special Season.

I'm going to keep the chatter simple as well and get on with my preparations for tomorrow night. I hope you enjoyed these CAS Christmas cards!

O Christmas tree...

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving - and we're moving on to Christmas with this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner! Our hostess this week is Wendy Janson and she has challenged us to make a card with a Christmas tree. My card for today is another one for my Christmas card buffet - it's a CASE of this card, which I thought was really cute. The card buffet stampers loved it too, so thanks to Debra Currier for the inspiration!

I wanted to introduce my stampers to the pennant punch and stamp set, and what better way than through an adorable Christmas card. It's a quite simple card - the cute snowflake embossing folder, Cherry Cobbler, Lucky Limeade and Soft Suede card stock (plus naturals white for stamping), DP from the Simply Scrappin' kit in the holiday mini, and the tree image with a sentiment from Perfect Pairs. If you are wondering what I used to make my scalloped "circle" it's actually two of the big flower on the Island Floral die, overlaid to make a circle. I like to get creative with my tools for card buffets so I don't have to use anything on more than one card, so this was my way of using a die I wouldn't have otherwise used at Christmas.

That's it for me this week - I still have more card buffet cards to show you and I hope I get time to do just that in the coming week! I hope you'll join in and make a Christmas tree card with us this week and be sure you take a peek at what the rest of the designers on our team came up with. I'm sure it will put you in the holiday spirit!

Gold and Blue Christmas

I'm back as promised with another card for my Christmas card buffet. This one is for the challenge this weekend at Our Creative Corner, which is an inspiration challenge:

The elements I chose to incorporate from this picture are the patterned tablecloth, the cream background, the golden bird on the table, and the pops of blue and black. This is what I came up with:

I started by cutting out the lattice (twice) with the Big Shot - it's tone-on-tone Very Vanilla. It takes two lattice cutouts to cover the card base, but you only need the end of one of them. I wrapped gold cord (retired, shh) around the panel and then put my bird in the center. You may not be able to tell but I used the Bright Hopes stamp set for the gold embossing. The tree image is large enough that you can stamp and emboss and then punch out the elements from the black and Pacific Point card stock. I used three of the branches and then added the gold berries. I made these by taking the Versamark pad straight to the vanilla card stock, embossing the whole thing gold, and punching them out with the dots on the cupcake punch - you can also use gold card stock. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and is punched with the word window and modern label punches. That's it! I like the clean design, and I didn't want to add anything else because it does take some time to assemble all the punched pieces.

I'm going to get back to work churning out those card designs - thanks for stopping by today, and don't forget to visit the OCC blog to see the inspired creations from the rest of our wonderful team!

It's that time of year...

Christmas card buffet time! I am actually doing the buffet twice this year, but with the same 10 cards, and *blush* I'm going to be CASEing a lot. Here's the first one, which is a CASE but one that I played around with some. The original card was shown at the Louisville regional and posted by Linda Heller (among others I'm sure). Here is my version, using the Paper Players color challenge of Always Artichoke, River Rock and Riding Hood Red:

I love that we now have a tool for making easy scored backgrounds! I used 1/2" score lines and sponged the River Rock panel with artichoke ink. Actually I sponged everything, LOL. Once you start it's hard to stop! The image from Bells & Boughs was colored with blender pen and reinkers so I could shade a little bit. I used one of the circles from the Pennant die for the layer behind my image. The rest of the card is pretty simple: a sentiment from Four the Holidays, vanilla and artichoke layers, RHR card base, three gold brads, and some artichoke seam binding.

I promise to show you another card buffet offering with my OCC challenge on Saturday. I can't guarantee I will make it back this week to post any of the others, but I will try! Thanks for visiting!

Christmas Poinsettias

Welcome to another Saturday and another challenge from Our Creative Corner! This week our hostess, Vicki Burdick, has a color challenge for us: Real Red, Basic Gray and Basic Black. A very classy combination that just said "Christmas" to me, so...

Here's what I came up with. This card features a stamp set that will be available in the upcoming Holiday Mini called Pines & Poinsettias. The idea for this card just popped into my head as I was assembling my stamps so I went with it. All of the stamps are from the same set, except the sentiment, which is from Delightful Dozen. I colored the small image with gray and red markers, and stamped the background swirl all over with black. The focal image I stamped twice so I could pop up the flowers. You probably can't see this but I added just little hints of our new liquid glitter called Dazzling Details. The final touch was three punched flowers with gray glimmer brads in the centers.

Ah, I feel the holiday spirit - it'll be here before we know it! I hope you'll play along with these colors and be sure to visit the OCC blog to see the rest of the team's creations. I'm sure you'll be inspired!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #42

For this week's challenge, we have a gorgeous set of Christmas coasters. Aren't they elegant? Of course, you don't have to use a holiday theme for your project - whatever this photo inspires you to create is perfect!

I pulled out a whole bunch of stamps for this card to create a collage-inspired look. The main image comes from the set Gifts of Christmas, and I embossed it in gold on naturals ivory card stock. Around the edge I added a few more poinsettias in Cherry Cobbler, plus I sponged the edges, then I layered the panel onto a piece of Always Artichoke that I sprayed with gold shimmer spray. To diffuse the sparkle I rubbed the gold spray into the cardstock with a paper towel. Once all that was done I didn't think the sentiment stood out enough, so I stamped it again and punched it out. For the background I used the swirl from Baroque Motifs, again gold embossed, along with a lot of seasonal words and phrases from several different sets. The final touch was a poinsettia made with the five petal punch - I scored the petals and leaves for dimension, sponged the edges, and used three gold brads in the center.

Be sure to check out the cards made by the rest of the Divine Divas for this challenge!

Anne

Chris

Julie

Hope you are inspired to come and play along. Just leave a comment here with a link to your card. We can't wait to see what you create! The keyword for uploading on online forums will be DDIC42.

Now, for some sad news - I have decided for several reasons that it's time to end my inspiration challenges. There is going to be a lot happening in my life next year, and although I am really going to miss bringing you inspiration pieces on a regular basis, it feels like the right time to call it a day. I want to thank everyone who has played along with us for these 42 challenges. We have appreciated your support and we'll miss sharing these challenges with you every two weeks. I also have to express my utmost appreciation for all the fabuous stampers who have served on the design team since we started the challenge. Your work has been wonderful and inspirational to me, week in and week out. And who knows... maybe we'll be back someday... Anyway, thanks for everything from me and the rest of the Divas. Many blessings to everyone!

Christmas card buffet, round 3

I'm back with two more CAS Christmas cards from the card buffet - I'm also posting for the SUO challenge. This first card was a CASE from a card by Ilina Crouse (which I see she CASEd from Nichole Heady). I used the wreath from Northern Hearts, stamped in Garden Green, with white embossed snowflakes all over the Crumb Cake base. The top of the white panel was punched with the scallop trim border punch. I added an embossed sentiment from Many Merry Messages, a 1/8" Real Red taffeta bow, and three rhinestones I colored with a red Sharpie.

As long as we're feeling "krafty" (LOL) here's another card with a Crumb Cake base. For this one I used the bells from Bells & Boughs, colored with markers and cut out, then accented with Smooch. Behind the bells I used an Early Espresso scallop punch and a panel of Deck the Halls paper. I cut a strip of Always Artichoke textured card stock with the Tasteful Trim die to put behind the DP, then a simple sentiment banner made with Curly Cute finished off this card. I know I got this layout from Jen del Muro but I'm not finding the exact post right now.

I still have three more cards to show you, but no more time today, so I'll be back again soon to finish these off!

Christmas card buffet, round 2

I'm back with another card from the card buffet - and this one also works for the Clean and Simple bow challenge at SCS. This is the simplest card we made but I thought it was very pretty and elegant. First I cut the oval and frame from naturals ivory and Cherry Cobbler card stock, then I stamped the holly image from Peaceful Season (second and third generation) all around the outside of the oval. The gorgeous sentiment went right on top with Cherry Cobbler ink. Then we added a simple ribbon - Always Artichoke seam binding wrapped around the inside and taped to the front of the card under the oval. The bow was added separately with a glue dot. I finished off with a Very Vanilla button threaded with embroidery thread.

I'm off to finish a big proofreading project right now, but I'll post more of our cards soon! Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Card Buffet, round 1

Today I held my annual Christmas card buffet and it was a huge success! I had eight stampers come to make Christmas cards. I do 10 designs for the card buffet, and you've already seen two of them, so I thought I'd come and post the rest. I'll just do a couple at a time, though, so you'll have new cards to look at for several days!

Most of the cards seemed to be a hit. This one is actually a redo of a card I did last year for one of the DDIC challenges. This version is SUO, of course - the stamp is from Autumn Days, colored in Garden Green and Chocolate Chip, with circles cut from the Big Shot and Circle Scissor Plus. (Partway through we also discovered that the 2 1/2" circle punch is the perfect size, so we switched to using that instead.) I added striped DP, a sentiment from Sincere Salutations, a satin bow, and some adhesive pearls.

Here's one with a slightly less traditional color combination: Bashful Blue, Bravo Burgundy and Pear Pizazz. This was a loose CASE of this card by Lynn Put. I stamped the ornament (from Tags Till Christmas) in those three colors and put them over pear DP. The background was partially embossed with the polka dot folder, leaving room for the sentiment at the bottom. I finished off with 1/8" taffeta ribbon (it's Old Olive, which is close enough) and pearls - again - don't you love these? The sentiment on this one is from Many Merry Messages, which has so many great holiday options.

I'll stop there for today - come back to see more Christmas cards all week!

Regal Rose Red Christmas

It's time for another challenge from Our Creative Corner and since it's December we have a new hostess - Sarah Gough. We have a color challenge for you to kick off the month: Regal Rose, Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise, kraft (Crumb Cake) and Very Vanilla. And it's not just a color challenge, but also a challenge to use these colors for a holiday card. Sounds fun, right?

I decided to combine the challenge with one of the 10 cards I needed to design for my Christmas card buffet that's happening this weekend. I'd seen this card from Chat and borrowed a few ideas from it. I thought it would be a great design for these colors. I also played along with the SCS inspiration challenge - my inspiration was this cute ornament.

My ornaments are from the stamp set Tree Trimmings, and I topped them off with a strip of Regal Rose DP and a punched border with the scallop ribbon border punch. The rest of the card is simply a few layers, a sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes, and three Rose Red brads.

I know I can't wait to see what the rest of the team has done with these fun colors for the holidays - so be sure you go check it out, and then play along with us!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #41

It's December and time for another inspiration challenge from the Divine Divas! This month's challenges will be holiday images, but don't feel obligated to make holiday cards - anything goes! For this week we have a cute cupcake kit full of fun colors and cute Christmas icons.

I have a Christmas card buffet this weekend and still needed one more card design, so I went the Christmas route for this one. I have to say, I think it turned out really cute. I stamped four images from Jolly Bingo Bits - looky, that set has everything you need for Christmas, including the four items shown in the cupcake kit! My colors are Riding Hood Red, Wild Wasabi, Baja Breeze, and Chocolate Chip. I was determined to find some bitty scalloped circles to go with my 1" circle punches, and wouldn't you know - the Birds & Blooms die set has the perfect one! I layered them onto several squares, then for the background I added some Candy Lane designer paper (which is unfortunately sold out!), retired ribbon (shh... it just had to be red and this is all I had), and a sentiment from Word Play. Can you see in the photo that the little ornament in the sentiment fits the 1/2" circle punch? So cute!

Be sure to check out the cards made by the rest of the Divine Divas for this challenge!

Anne

Chris

Julie

Hope you are inspired to come and play along. Just leave a comment here with a link to your card. We can't wait to see what you create! The keyword for uploading on online forums will be DDIC41. Have fun and look for the next challenge on December 16!

Glitter, glitter everywhere...

This week's challenge at Our Creative Corner is to make a tag or incorporate a tag into our project. I decided to make a tag and put it onto a Christmas card. I, um, went a little nuts with the glitter... and you should see what didn't make it onto the card, LOL. I'm not sure what I think of this card, but it's definitely sparkly!

I started out with the Serene Snowflakes stamp set, and using Not Quite Navy ink and generational stamping I created my background panel with Baja Breeze card stock, then I added the smallest snowflakes over the background with iridescent ice embossing powder. I used the Tasteful Trim die to make the scalloped border. For the tag, which I cut out with the Two Tags die and Not Quite Navy card stock, I added an inset layer of Baja Breeze and stamped the smallest snowflakes all over with Not Quite Navy, then I covered the whole tag with Versamark and embossed with iridescent ice again. On top I added a Concord Crush punched ornament (from Tags Till Christmas), a sentiment from Christmas Greetings, a punched Concord Crush snowflake and a Concord Crush bow. Just in case it wasn't blingy enough yet, I accented the punches with just a few adhesive rhinestones.

Be sure you go see what the rest of the team created for the challenge, then tag - you're it! It's your turn to come and make your own tag creation and share it with us. Have a great weekend!

J-O-Y

This week at Our Creative Corner our November hostess, Linda Coughlin, is challenging us to make a 3-D holiday gift. I decided to combine the challenge with my club's 3-D project for the month and came up with this JOY banner. I got the idea from this banner but thought it would be cute with letters inside instead of photos. It was a little hard to get photos since I hung it in the stairwell going down from my studio, but I did my best!

The original project used the matchbox die for the boxes, and I intended to do that as well... until I realized they were too small for the Serif Essentials Alphabet. So I quickly made my own little boxes. They are 5 3/4" x 6" panels of Old Olive textured card stock, scored at 3/4" and 1 1/2" on each side; cut off the corners to create tabs and you have a sweet little box. The Cherry Cobber letters fit nicely inside these. I backed them with panels of Jolly Holiday DP (2 5/8" x 2 7/8") and for accents I added images from the Jolly Bingo Bits stamp set (from the mini catalog). I used a 1" book ring for the holder and looped Old Olive striped ribbon through it, then, to keep it in place, I sewed on a Cherry Cobbler button with linen thread. Yes, you read that right, I sewed it on. And my club members will do it, too, whether they like it or not! ;) The final touch was tying a Very Vanilla satin ribbon bow on top of the ring, just to make it a little more elegant.

Here are close-ups of the letters themselves. As for the red and green rhinestones, did you know you can color our adhesive rhinestones and pearls with Sharpies? Try it! Be sure you visit the OCC blog to see the rest of the team's creations - you'll find lots more great gift ideas for the holidays!

Club Christmas CASE

Hey, what do you know... I've posted every day this week! Aren't you impressed? LOL! I thought I'd share one of the cards we're making at club this weekend. I loved this card from Chat Wszelaki and decided to CASE it for a Christmas card. It has all the elements you need in a Christmas card - simple, flat for mailing, and elegant.

I started with Very Vanilla and ran it through the Big Shot with the Northern Flurry embossing folder. Conveniently this matches the Northern Hearts hostess set - both products are in the holiday mini catalog. To layer my Night of Navy snowflake, I used the 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches and the Homemade stamp, which fits in the 2 3/8" scalloped circle punch. I added a strip of navy DP, a sentiment from Contempo Christmas, and adhesive rhinestones for just a little bit of holiday bling. Want an all-purpose holiday card? Just swap out the sentiment for another of your choice!

I just love how this turned out and I wouldn't be surprised if I send a few of these out myself. I hope you enjoyed it - thanks for visiting today!

Christmas Bells

I made this card for the clean and simple challenge on SCS. This week it's a sketch challenge. I've been in a Christmas mood - and it's going to be time to send out Christmas cards soon enough, so I went with another holiday card. And what do you know, it also fits the Paper Players color challenge for the week!

I based the design around the Deck the Halls paper, choosing one of the printed holly designs for the bottom panel and stamping the sentiment, which is from the coordinating stamp set Bells & Boughs, in Early Espresso right onto the DP. The background is another one of the prints from that pack. I colored the bell image with Cherry Cobbler, Always Artichoke and Crumb Cake markers and a blender pen. To add dimension I cut the image out and mounted it onto a Nestabilities circle. I kept the embellishments simple with a strip of artichoke seam binding and three (retired) vintage brads.

That's it for this CAS Christmas card - have a wonderful day!

Vintage Christmas, take two

It's time again for the weekly challenge from Our Creative Corner. Wendy gave us a great color challenge: Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso, Old Olive, So Saffron and Very Vanilla. Remember this card? the one where I said I messed up the challenge? I was intending the card to be for this challenge, but I didn't use the right colors - oops! This time I'm back with a card that follows the challenge - but I stuck with the vintage Christmas idea for this card and used the same watercoloring technique.

I pulled out the Bells & Boughs stamp set again, but this time I used one of the images for my watercoloring with markers. I wanted the style to be more elegant on this card, so I chose the gorgeous Cherry Cobbler paper from Deck the Halls (in the holiday mini), along with a panel of saffron DP and an olive dot print from Jolly Holiday (also in the holiday mini). I dirtied up the edges with espresso ink again, and on the saffron paper I even covered the whole panel since it looked a little too bright and clean, LOL! I added a sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes accented with the modern label punch and two olive brads. A bow made of Cherry Cobbler seam binding (again, holiday mini) provides an elegant embellishment. Tip of the day: The seam binding is very lightweight, which makes it gorgeous but also a little fragile, so handle it carefully. The color and texture are so pretty, it's worth it!

I hope you enjoyed my second vintage Christmas card - now go take a peek at the other creations from the OCC team and then play along with us! Have a great weekend!

Vintage Christmas oops!

I was working on a challenge card tonight and I had the challenge completely wrong in my head... I guess I will be making one extra card this week! But I do like how my oops card came out so I'm going to go ahead and post it. And coincidentally, it also works for the color challenge from the Paper Players - lucky for me I messed up, LOL!

I hadn't played yet with the new stamp set called Greeting Card Kids. They are such adorable images and great for watercoloring, which I hadn't done in a while. I've been seeing that other stampers do their watercoloring with markers and I had never tried it that way, so I played around with it on this card. I think I'll be trying it more because it was really fun! I used Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Early Espresso, and Crumb Cake markers with my Aqua Painter. The pink trim on her hat and coat was also an oops - I didn't mean for the red to bleed into it, but once that happened I went with it and I actually think it looks sweet.

To finish the rest of my card, I added a panel of dot paper from the Jolly Holiday pack, a sentiment from the Bells & Boughs set that appears in the holiday mini, some crochet trim, and a bow. I made the bow from the same crochet trim and the Cherry Cobbler seam binding available in the upcoming mini, then added one of the gorgeous antique brads in the center. The punch I used for the label behind the sentiment is also new in the holiday mini. It's called the decorative label punch and it's fabulous. I wanted to make the shape a little bigger so I punched an extra label, trimmed off the short ends, and added them to the top and bottom of the sentiment shape. For more vintage goodness I also sponged all the edges with Early Espresso ink.

That's it from me... I spent most of the evening working on this card, so I guess I won't be getting to the correct challenge tonight! Tomorrow is another day, right?

Welcome Christmas

OK, so I'm not really welcoming Christmas in July, but over at Our Creative Corner we are! Jennifer is finishing her month as hostess with a Christmas in July challenge. I actually made this card a couple weeks ago when my upline had a Christmas shoebox swap.

All the images on this card come from the new stamp set called Welcome Christmas. I just love it - of course, I do have a thing for Christmas stamps and could never have too many, but that's beside the point... Anyway, I chose River Rock, Cherry Cobbler and Early Espresso for my colors. The wreath was stamped on naturals white card stock; I colored over the berries for a pop of color. I stamped the sentiment twice so I could cut out the middle and mount it on dimensionals. Some rounded corners, the JOY stamp down the side, sponged edges and espresso satin ribbon finished off this clean and simple card.

I always feel happy after making a Christmas card so I hope you'll join in the challenge and share the holiday spirit! Thanks for stopping by - it's going to be a busy month so my posts may be few and far between, but I always appreciate your visits and your comments!