Cards, Cards, Cards - Christmas - a bit of bling

What's the best thing about making Christmas cards??  You can add bling as often as you like!!
Here is another design inspired by Splitcoast Stampers.  I have been seeing this embossing folder used in every format and with several different techniques for the center image so I decided to see if I could find a way to use this embossing folder - Cuttlebug Flourished Frame - for a card in this class.  I perused my digital images and found that these ones had almost the perfect proportions for the frame!!  These are by Melissa Jenkins and were downloaded from her blog when she was offering free images regularly.  They were perfect!!  I laser printed them to the right size, watercoloured them and used 3D foam tape to layer them over the embossed layer which I had already glued to my card front.  Just a few rhinestones glued to the flourishes finished off these cards!!  THRIFTY TIP:  Check out this link on my sister's blog that talks about using a fine tip bottle for applying glue.  The rhinestones we used today did not have a sticky back so I brought my little fine tip glue bottle - works so well.  My bottle used to be filled with dimensional fabric paint made by Tulip, I think.  I used the paint to make decorative paper and filled the cleaned out, empty bottle with white glue.  Just a little dab will do you and it dries clear so if the glue expands a bit beyond the edge of the rhinestone it just disappears once the glue is dry.  I am willing to bet that in your stash of crafty supplies you have a bottle with a fine tip which you could use for this purpose!  If you don't, no worries, there are several glues out there made specifically for paper crafting that have fine tips so check out your local craft or scrapbooking store.

Therese

Cards, Cards, Cards - Christmas - Folk art tree

I love this little folk art tree image!!  I found it on Laura`s blog called Pop N Stick.  She has several other cool digital images you can use for card making so check out her site!!  Here is a direct link to the tree.
I layered the tree to coloured cardstock, added a border punched strip and a  rectangle of decorative Christmas paper which I glued to a coordinating card front to make up this card.  I added a bit of ribbon to the decorative paper, sponged my eyelet edge, watercoloured my image and added this little greeting on my insert - Christmas is about what`s in your heart, not what`s under the tree. Wishing you a merry little Christmas!!
Making your own cards gives you so much flexibility!!  You can add your own little twists, use your favorite colour combinations and add meaningful greetings!!

Therese

Cards, Cards, Cards - Christmas - Vintage look

Christmas cards with a bit of a vintage feel!!  These cards feature images from a font called Christmas Cheer which I downloaded from the internet last week.  You can find it here.  I used the JOY, PEACE, NOEL and the winter scene with the house for these cards.  In Corel Draw, I sized the images to fit nicely in my largest oval Nestibilities, laser printed them eight to a page and cut them out individually.  I sponged the edges of my oval, my card and my button and watercoloured my image. I added a black label frame die cut (SX) embossed with a victorian embossing folder and placed some vintage seam binding in between.  These were layered onto a card front which was stamped using my Worn background stamp (SU) in brown.   I added a button and a bow which is a new technique I picked up this week off of Nancy Ward`s blog - Paper Friendly.  You can find the tutorial on Vicki Wizniuk`s blog - Wizards Hangout.  Basically, you take a length of ribbon, cross the ends, bring the center of the loop to the cross over, insert it into a loop of twine on the back of the button, tighten and tie off with a double knot.  Check out the tutorial and you will see how easy it is!!  I used a chipboard button which I die cut from a cereal box which was just the right colour to go with this card and used black cotton crochet thread to tie off the bow.  We used glue dots to attach this embellishment to our card fronts.
It is fun to create Christmas cards in non traditional colours though this one is starting to be one of my favorite combinations.  Check out these cards and these ones we made last year.  Here`s a few more and some more made a few years ago.
Don`t be afraid to think outside the box when it comes to colour combinations and images for Christmas cards.  One of the girls at class today said she would probably use these bird images for making a few Christmas cards.  I think they would make wonderful Christmas cards!!

Therese

Cards, Cards, Cards - Christmas - doilies

Christmas cards!!  We met this morning to create Christmas cards and get a head start on that process.  It always feels great to have your cards made and ready to go when December rolls around.
I have been loving the lovely cards I have seen on Splitcoast Stampers that feature the dainty Doily stamp from SU and really wanted to make a card with that lacy look!!  For this large class it means a lot of thermal embossing to get that look so I decided to see if I could find a digital solution.  Hooray!  I found one.  On the Avant Garde Collection CD (SU) there is a paper collection called Flirtatious and one of the papers is a large doily!!  I brought the image into Photo Shop Elements and replaced all of the white areas with transparent in a few clicks of the mouse following instructions from the internet.  I cannot seem to locate the exact tutorial I used but there are lots of different ones on how to do this.  I was also able to change the colour of the doily in PSE using the paint bucket so I created a white and red version to use on these Christmas cards!!    I imported the images into Corel Draw, duplicated them so I had four doilies and then  laid them out so they would each be off the page in each corner of a 8.5 x11 page.  I created a box of colour beneath the two white doilies to show them off nicely and added greetings.  Once I had them sized and positioned by eye I printed one page to see which circle punch I would need to create the centers.  I had to resize the doilies a bit so that the 1 3/8" punchies would leave a nice scalloped edge visible.  I printed these on white cardstock using a colour laser, cut them apart and trimmed them to 4" x 5.25".  I layered a coordinating circle punchie in the center of the doily, added a fiber snowflake and used a brad to attach them all together.  This element was glued to a coordinating card front.  I embellished the front with glitter glue to add just a bit of sparkle!!  I used iridescent for mine but some girls at class today used silver on the blue one and red on the red one and that really looked very nice!!  I expect a spritz of shimmer spray would be really great too!!
So I encourage you to find your newest Christmas stamp, a sketch you like,dig out some paper and get creative!!  If you prefer digital stamps check out the next few post for links to some I used for this class.

Therese