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This plaid background makes for a cozy setting for three ornaments and branches from old Christmas cards. The ornaments were cut with a Cuttlebug die tag shape and the top colored with a gold metallic marker. Little loops of gold cord connect them to their branches and they are raised on foam tape.
The clear acrylic sticker greeting was applied to cream cardstock to match the folded card base.
Ddd
For these ten wreath cards I used the shaped embossing technique, the brocade folder and a donut shaped chipboard. I also did not do any direct-to-paper coloring but only used the shaving brush and applied Whispers ink in a circular motion.
Each has five red rhinestones, a red bow and a clear acrylic sticker. Here's a close-up of one of them.
Aren't these elegant?
Ddd
Before I figured out the shaped embossing I did a standard one onto this ridged gold cardstock and cut out the tree. The rhinestones in a single size makes this a little more formal than the others, too.
This is mounted on a irridescent green cardstock and I added gold and silver peel-off packages, topper, and greeting.
Ddd
Yes, yes I know it's the new year - but I'm NOT done showing Christmas cards yet. Think of them as imspiration for NEXT year!
Oooooh! I LOVE this technique! For these four I switched to the brocade folder but kept the same triangle cutout. The coloring is done exactly the same way and I switched out the colors of the rhinestones and backing cardstocks.
Here's a closeup of the one I like best.
Ddd
OK, moving along... Oh, we're still on Christmas cards - just moving on to different techniques!
I saw on a cuople of blogs that I could change the shape of the impression of a plate in the Cuttlebug by cutting that shape from thisk chipboard and using it on top of the folder instead of the B plate. SO COOL!
I cut a tall triangle and made the 'sandwich' of (bottom up) A plate, folder with cardstock inside, cut chipboard, C plate. This is run through the Cuttlebug and this is the result!
I used a Whispers ink pad direct-to-paper to color the raised portions. Then I used a 'shaving brush' style tool to apply a shading of a slightly different green.
The last step was to adhere red rhinestones to the swirls in two different sizes.
Ddd
One more of the alcohol ink backgrounds. These flakes were cut from glittery bits of old Christmas cards using the MS punch and a Cuttlebug die. The large flakes are mounted with snowflake brads and the smaller ones with gold star brads.
Silver folded cardstock is the base and a clear acrylic sticker with a blue backing.
Ddd
I made this background by cleaning off an alcohol ink application pad with three tones of blue and silver mixatives.
These snowflakes were punched out from glossy cardstock, stuck to a transparency and colored with alcohol inks. When dry I applied Glossy Accents and sprinkled with Martha Stewart tinsel glitter. I added one teal rhinestone to the center of each.
The folded cardstock for this card is silver and I added a clear acrylic sticker greeting with a blue background.
Ddd
Yep, back to the swoosh of flakes stamp! This time, stamped twice onto tall panels and graced with two punched flakes mounted with brads.
Since I had, by now, run out of gold brads I used silver on all of these and then used thick acrylic stickers for the greetings. One is applied directly to the card and two were stuck to more of the teal background card color and trimmed out for mounting.
Ddd
Hey, It's MY blog and you'll look at CHristmas cards till I tell you to stop!
In this group, background of the upper center one is done with alcohol inks and silver mixatives, cleaning off the applicator by streaking across the glossy cardstock. The other four use a Whispers ink pad dragged across the cardstock to leave streaks.
All have teal punched snowflakes, showflake brads and sticker greetings. If you look closely you can see that some of the brads are gold, some silver, and one white. I used some gold snowflake stickers in each center to tie in the gold of the greeting stickers.
Ddd
Are you saying to yourself, "Hey, I saw these already!"? Think again! THOSE were gold flakes and these are teal, THOSE had scrapbook paper mats and these do not, THOSE had a single gold brad and these have THREE!
See? Totally different!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Ddd
I used another panel with the snowflake stamped background but this time added a gold panel to the center. Over this I adhered a teal snowflake fromt he MS punch using a gold snowflake brad.
I, again, used a peel-off greeting.
Ddd
This swirl of flakes is from the same clear acrylic set of stamps as the large ones stamped yesterday. I stamped on a glossy panel and then used the MS punch to make golden flakes from a portion of a foiled Christmas card from last year. These I attached using gold snowflake brads.
Scrapbook paper was used to create the mat and these are mounted to teal folded cardstock. The greeting is a gold peel-off sticker.
Ddd
I recently bought a snowflake stamp set of clear acrylics and have put them to good use. I folded a glossy cardstock and stamped an overall pattern of flakes using Whispers ink.
Then I used another recent purchase - a Martha Stewart snowflake punch and make these four by punching over foiled imprints from an old Christmas card. I love how the different foil snowflakes make every punch look like a different tool was used! The foild were of magenta, teal, silver and gold.
Each flake was mounted using only a glue dot in the middle to leave dimension in the edges. Then a rhinestone was adhered to the center of each and the greeting - a gold peel-off - added to the card.
Ddd
Technically, this could come under the heading of 'collage' cards but I really wanted to point out the background technique instead. I made this background with three tones of alcohol ink and silver mixatives. This was near the end, when I had little left on the applicator and the colors were pretty well blended. I used a slide-and-twist motion to clean off the applicator on the glossy cardstock and this was the result. I used a fancy corner punch on the background.
The center panel is the front off an old Christmas card, cut with a Nestabilities label die. I raised it on foam tape for dimension. I mounted on a folded pink cardstock base with the corners rounded and then added a thick acrylic sticker to more of the pink and trimmed around before adhering to the card.
---------------------------------------------------
I feel free showing all my Christmas cards now because 1) they've been in the mail long enough that most should have been received by now and 2) I haven't had a comment on my blog for so long I don't think anyone is out there anymore. It's not like someone is going to see this and 'spoil the surprise'.
Ddd
I'm calling this entry 'stamping' even though you can hardly see it in the final result and even though I didn't to the original stamping! A friend sent me these two impressions in an image swap and I colored them in with markers. I used a Cuttlebug die to cut snowflakes out of the glittery parts of last year's Christmas cards and covered the trees with them.
A punch was used to round the corners of the panel and the tent-fold green cardstock bases.
Each one has a thick acrylic sticker applied.
Ddd
More tiger eye spheres set off this simple combination with creamy fall colored paper beads. A 27.5-inch length, this goes well with any casual attire.
...and we now return you to your regularly scheduled blog programming!
Ddd
Ball beads of tiger eye are encased in silver caps to separate these moss-green paper beads. This makes for a classy necklace of a generous 32-inch length.
The 'dashes' are the paper beads from striped paper in subdued tones. The 'dots' are the shiny wooden beads in a tone that makes them look like birch.
A very subtle 30.5-inch length.
30 inches of fruity goodness! In addition to the clear embossing powder I added a coat of embossing called 'icy sparkle' It has a very subtle glitter in it and really adds the perfect finish to these beads.
Pink and orange glass beads are spacers.
Ddd
A two-toned subtle print paper created these beads. I used brown glass beads and encased them in silver caps to make up the spacers. This necklace is a long 31.5 inches.
