Jolly Christmas Stocking

It's been a busy week; the kind of busy that doesn't leave a lot of time for stamping and even less for blogging. Still, I wasn't completely unproductive. I dug out some long-forgotten stuff out of my craft stash and cranked my big shot to make some cards for this year's Christmas stash. There was very little stamping on these as most of the work was done with die cutting and dry embossing, but I'm happy with how they turned out. I know the image shows only 1 card, but there are 9 more that are identical to this one with the super cute patterned envelopes and seals to go with them. I think they will make a good impact when they arrive in our families' mailboxes this Christmas season.

It all started with me digging out an invitation kit I bought on clearance years and years ago, back when I still had some weird ambitions to throw the kinds of Christmas parties that required mailed invitations. Needless to say, the parties never materialized so it was high time to find an alternate use for these supplies. Looking at the 8.5x 5.5" patterned invitation cards, I instantly thought of the SU Holiday Stocking die which (for reasons I still don't understand) is slightly too large to use on a standard A2 card but is actually the perfect size to use on this background. I trimmed 1/8" off all sides of the invitation and attached it in the center of a 8.5x5.5" white card base. I then got a good workout on the big shot cranking out 10 stockings in real red and 10 of the top, heel and toe stocking trims in whisper white, and them embossing all of them with the Snowburst, Petals-a-Plenty and Northern Flurries embossing folders. I take no credit for my choice of embossing folders - I totally CASEd Nendy Kerr's idea, which you can find in this post on her blog. I attached all the pieces of the stocking using 3m double sided tape, adding hanger loop at the top made from a strip of red card stock, and attached the completed stocking to the card.

I stamped the sentiment from the Tags 4 You set in real red on whisper white card stock and punched it out with the label bracket punch. To add a little interest and color, I attached a green galore card stock snowflake that I die cut with a thinlit from the Snowflake Card assortment to the back of the sentiment. For me, the easiest way to center the snowflake on the sentiment was to lay the sentiment upside down, add 3m double sided tape and then center the snowflake on top of the adhesive so that little bits of the shorter snowflake "arms" extended beyond the four corners between the "brackets" on the punched shape, as shown in the photo. I then added two more strips of double sided tape on top of the snowflake so that there was plenty adhesive to attach the snowflake/sentiment combo to the top of the stocking.

I like these cards because they are impactful without being too difficult or fussy to make, they're pretty flat for mailing, and also because they helped me clear out a little space in my craft stash. When you're a supply collector (or, as my husband would put it, probably more accurately, a hoarder) like me, you have to celebrate even these little victories :).

Recipe:

Paper: Whisper White, Real Red, Green Galore, Invitations from Holly and Berries invitation kit by Ampad
Ink: Real Red
Stamps: Tags 4 You
Accessories: Holiday Stockings Die, Snowburst, Petals-a-Plenty and Northern Flurries embossing folders, Label Bracket Punch, Snowflake Card Thinlits

Warm Window Wishes

Today I made a window card. Hopefully you can see the corner of the inside of the card base behind the snowmen.

I had a totally different idea for a card when I went into my stamp room, but somehow it morphed into this. I'm happy with the final result, even though die cutting the windows turned out to be more difficult than I first thought. For some reason the camera isn't capturing the vibrancy of green galore. This card looks much "happier" in real life.

The snowmen were stamped on a window sheet with black stayzon ink and colored in using Bic permanent markers and a sharpie waterbased white paint marker. The red mat was stamped with snowflakes from the Snowflakes set in versamark ink. The sentiment from the Snowflakes set was stamped on glorious green in versamark and embossed with white embossing powder, and then die cut using one of the ovals from a Sizzix Ovals Framelits assortment (these are narrower than the Stampin' Up! oval framelits).

I used glorious green and real red for the mat and white for the card base. I die cut the window in the base and the mats using Stampin' Up! Ovals Framelits and used partial pressure to make sure I only cut part of the oval. This actually took several passes through the big shot and some manual trimming with my craft knife and a metal edge ruler to make the straight edge. A bit of a pain, to be honest, but it turned out OK in the end.

Once everything was cut to size, I attached the acetate to the red mat with SNAIL adhesive and hand trimmed it around the oval. I then attached it to the green mat. I added the white baker's twine bow and the sentiment to the front and then attached the whole assembly to the white card base, making sure to match up the die cut windows. I toyed with stamping the inside of the card with snowflakes, but decided to leave well enough alone so as not to distract from the cute snowmen.

Definitely not a card to mass produce, but it will hopefully make a nice surprise for someone worthy of a special card.

Recipe:

Paper: Whisper White, REal Red, Green Galore, Window Sheet
Ink: Versamark, Black Stayzon, Bic permanent markers, Sharpie water based white paint marker
Stamps: Snowflakes, The World Over
Accessories: White Embossing Powder, Sizzix Ovals Framelits, Stampin' Up! Ovals Framelits, white baker's twine

Metallic Plaid Christmas

I enjoyed making my own plaid background so much yesterday, I decided to give it another go. This time I wanted to use my metallic markers and make a clean and simple Christmas card. I used very vanilla card stock for the plaid background, the card base and the sentiment, with a small piece of brushed gold card stock for the sentiment mat. I stamped the sentiment and snowflakes with versamark and heat embossed them with gold embossing powder. For the plaid background the thin silver and gold stripes are made with silver and gold metallic sharpies. The wider gold stripe was made with Stampin' Dazzle gold marker by drawing two thin lines and filling in the space in between. All the layers are popped upon dimensionals. The shape on the short ends of the sentiment very vanilla layer was created using the rounded tab punch.

Recipe:

Paper: Very Vanilla, Brushed Gold

Ink: Versamark, Gold and Silver Metallic Sharpie markers, Stampin' Dazzle gold marker
Stamps: Snowflakes, Greetings of the Season
Accessories: gold embossing powder, rounded tab punch, corner rounder punch

Quilted Christmas

What's great about challenges is that they really make you either try things you've never done before or re-visit stuff you haven't one in a long while. This particular card took me back to one of the first cards I made when I started stamping posted to SCS nearly 11 years ago. I was inspired to re-visit quilt cards by girlgook101's Saturday SCS inspiration challenge to use designer paper and by AJ Bodine (Rutabagapie) and Julie Warner (justwritedesigns), the challenge hostess who chose AJ as the featured stamper for the SCS featured Stamper challenge a couple of Sundays ago. Click here to see the card in AJ's gallery that inspired mine.  Since this week's QKR Stampede challenge is Christmas in July, I'm going to enter this card in that one as well.

I was super impressed with all the details on AJ's card, and I especially loved her quilt block die cut. However, without that die cut there was no way I was going to attempt cutting the pieces for that block by hand. Instead, I decided to go for a simpler design, simpler even than the Annie's Choice block I chose for my card 11 years ago. This time I used the Sarah's Choice quilt block pattern and made things even easier for myself by assembling the star pattern on top of an uncut 4"x4" piece of old olive designer paper. To make things a little more interesting, I pieced the center square on another piece of 2"x2" card stock before adding it to the card. This, along with the woven four square element in the center of the star creates a telescoping layer effect.  I'm not sure if I like this effect, but once I adhered the pieces, it was too late to change my mind.

I kept AJ's two tone blue color scheme, but I added old olive to the mix. Since I didn't have a stamp for the cute little house, I opted to die cut Christmas trees in two different designer papers instead. I hand cut the "snowdrift" layers at the bottom and added some dazzling diamonds to the edges for a bit of sparkle. The top snowdrift layer and the trees are popped up with dimensionals.

I don't usually make cards with so little stamping (just the sentiment, in this case) but it was appropriate for this card. My hubby liked it and asked if I could make 40 more. Um.... no. Way too complicated to be our Christmas card for this year. Still, I had fun making this one.

Recipe (all products Stampin' Up!)

Paper: bashful blue, pacific point, whisper white, Holiday Thyme DSP, Prints/Patterns DSP in bashful blue and pacific point.
Ink: pacific point
Stamps: Warmest Regards
Accessories: Holiday Collection Framelits, dazzling diamonds

Log Cabin Season

I had so much fun making the last card for the free-for-all challenge, I decided to make another. This time, I combined it with last week's mixability challenge, which was to use kraft (or in my case, crumb cake) card stock.

I used an Inkadinakado log cabin stamp for my main image. I stamped it in chocolate chip craft ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I used the aqua painter and watercolor wonder crayon in handsome hunter to add color to the pines, the ruby red watercolor wonder crayon to add color to the window frames, porch and chimney, and the brocade blue crayon to color in the smoke. I like how the colors are subtle on craft card stock, but still noticeable. For the large areas of snow I used a sharpie water based paint marker and for the more detailed areas a signo white gel pen.

I dry embossed a 4"x4.25" piece of chocolate chip card stock with the snow burst embossing folder. This gave me a 1/4" margin along the sides of the image. I added a piece of designer series paper from the Christmas Cocoa pack at the bottom so that both the image and DSP together would measure 3.75" in height and I tied a piece of handsome hunter grosgrain ribbon along the seam.

I stamped the sentiment from the Snow Swirled set in chocolate chip craft ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder. I used the ticket corner punch to give the sentiment a little more interest. I also stamped the snowflake image form the Christmas Punch set in encore gold ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder before punching it out with the coordinating boho blossoms punch. I attached both sentiment and snowflake to the DSP strip with dimensionals and attached the image to the chocolate chip embossed card stock.

The card was almost done, but with a large strip of the crumb cake card base exposed at the bottom, it needed just a little bit more. I stamped the entire card front with the Linen background stamp in versamark ink. It gave me exactly the subtle bit of texture I was looking for. I attached the chocolate chip piece to the base and the card was done.

Recipe: all products Stampin' Up! unless otherwise indicated):

Paper: crumb cake, chocolate chip, Christmas cocoa DSP
Ink: chocolate chip craft, Encore gold, Versamark
Stamps: Snow Swirled, Christmas Punch, Linen, Log Cabin from Inkadinkado
Accessories: Watercolor Wonder Crayons in handsome hunter, brocade blue and ruby red, Aqua Painter; Signo White Gel Pen, Sharpie water based white paint marker; handsome hunter narrow grosgrain ribbon; Snow Burst embossing folder, clear embossing powder, ticket corner punch, boho blossoms punch.