Saturday, January 11, 2014

My January Christmas cards!

I am setting the goal of making Christmas cards monthly again this year!!  I am following my sister, Sylvia's monthly Christmas Card challenge.
January's theme is embossing so I have incorporated both dry embossing and thermal embossing in my card.
I started by laser printing this Christmas rose and holly digital image from Beccy's Place.  I added the gold embossed greeting using my handmade stamping jig, watercoloured the images and glued them to a black layer.  I punched a slot (SU) on the top left hand side and strung a piece of red vintage seam binding through it.

I mounted it to a green embossed layer (CB-Swiss Dot) using 3D foam tape and adhered the ends of the seam binding to the back using double sided tape.  I then glued this element to a red card front.
Here is a look at my handmade stamping jig - I used Legos to make it!!  It works really well and I have put it in my tools drawer to be used next time I need to stamp an image in an exact location.
UPDATE:  For those who asked:  I have used a piece of vellum to stamp my greeting on and saved it in a envelope stored with my jig. You can also use a piece of acetate (transparency or packaging works well).  This method allows you to reuse the acetate if you use dye ink to stamp with as it will wipe right off the plastic.
I am submitting this card design to the following challenges:
Christmas cards all year round - anything goes
Sylvia's Christmas card challenge - embossing
Beccy's Place - any project with one of her images

It feels good to be back to cardmaking!!

Therese

Star tags

 I needed some Christmas tags for an exchange that I need to mail away shortly so I decided to experiment with the size of the star card to make some tags instead.  I found a sheet and half of this beautiful 12 x12 paper in my stash and adjusted the size until I could get enough tags.  I was able to cut nine 6" equilateral triangles which gave me enough tags for the exchange and a couple for myself. The 6" equilateral triangle measures 5.25" on the center line, and you score each point at 2.5" (valley fold) and 1.75" (mountain fold).  Once I scored and folded all of my points I sponged all the edges to hide the white core of the paper and the few places on the folds where the top layer had cracked to reveal the white core.  I created a layered embellishment using a beautiful digital image of a pointsettia from Beccy's Place which I laser printed and then watercoloured, a green circle punchie over a black scalloped circle punchie (SU).
I embellished the scallops with dots from my clear Star Dust gel pen and also added some to the points of my star.  I punched a hole on the top point and added a hanger made from heavy crochet cotton.
I left them so they could be unfolded and have something inserted in them and the back is appropriate for adding TO and FROM information. I could have also chosen to glue the embellishment to all of the top layers instead.
Really glad how these turned out!  I will be putting mine into my Christmas ornament box to be enjoyed for years to come.  These would make a beautiful ornament embellishments for a Christmas card!!  Another option for me when getting my Christmas cards made for this year.
I will be submitting this project to Beccy's Place January challenge which is to use any of her images in a project.  I love her images and use them quite often in my creations!!  Check out her website here.

Therese