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I couldn't squeeze all the Christmas cards in before the holiday so I've got to keep going for a few more days. I don't want to have to save them till NEXT Christmas.
This snowflake background is oh so sparkly with glitter on about half of the flakes.
I added a strip of reindeer print and used several vinyl holly stickers to decorate it.
A stamped sentiment on top of the strip is the finishing touch.
Ddd
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
The foliage on this card was looking pretty elegant so I tried to find other elements that would reinforce that.
First I selected a gold embossed strip and then chose a round piece from the tags and journaling blocks page. I punched this with my big round punch.
It needed a bit more so I found a round sticker with three candles and applied that to the center of the circle.
Having the sentiment stamped into the foliage keeps it low key.
Ddd
You may start to recognize papers and elements that look familiar even though they are a bit different. These would be papers that were originally in 12 x 12 pads and cut apart but there were also coordinating papers that carried some of the same elements.
That is certainly the case with this background. The plaid is repeated in other cards in their accents. This background is all one piece... the plaid, its green border, the brown and the XXX stitching.
What is NOT on the background is the tag (which contains the poinsettia) and the greeting (which is a separate sticker).
Ddd
I found lots of flakes stick together so I combined a brown snowflake paper with a strip of odd little snowment and overlaid that with vellum having gold snowflakes embossed onto it.
I used a rub-on sentiment that stays with the snow theme.
When I discovered the main piece was too narrow for the card base, I just embraced the idea of having only side borders.
Ddd
I had two very different blue papers with snowflakes on them. Totally different treatments, too.
For the first (which has music in the background) I added a strip of dark red with a tone on tone holly print. I had a vellum sticker with holly and pinecones so that became the accent piece. I used a stamp for the sentiment.
This second paper has swirls in the background. I found the text sticker in my stash and added the green strip below as an accent. It was a bit plain so I added a sticker with a nativity on it.
The stars and swirl are gold peel-off stickers.
Ddd
I think the paper I used for today's card looks like old-fashioned gift wrapping.
I added a distressed plaid strip to break up all theat expanse of red.
The circle element (from the big page of tags and journal cards) was larger than this but I wanted to use my large round punch and this was the size it cuts.
I used a clear acrylic sticker for the sentiment.
Ddd
A couple of the prints I found in my bin of papers were retro in pastel blue and pink. They were hard to accent because the prints are so busy.
For this first one I added a contrasting strip of paper through the middle and 'hung' a two-layer vinyl wreath sticker on it. I distressed the edges of the papers to separate the layers.
The second print was less busy so I placed the contrasting strip off in the margin and placed the wreath sticker (with text inside) in the middle of the patterned portion.
You can see the distressing on the edges of these papers as well.
Ddd
In a swap a while back I received a pad of Christmas papers with shaped edges. I pulled three of them out to make this set of cards.
First is a green sheet with a scalloped edge and printed with a shiny string of lights.
I added a strip of music print on blue and over that a vellum foliage sticker. The greeting is a silver peel-off sticker.
The next sheet, printed with stars and mittens, has a great shaped edge. It wasn't quite tall enough for the card front so I added another patterned strip above it.
Silver peel-off stickers provide some of the stars and the greeting. The round element is from the tags and journal blocks sheet.
The thirdpage I used from this pad has a 'ticket' shape to it. I repeated that with the embellishment I selected. I added a patterned strip to the plaid background and stamped the greeting.
These cards are in two different sizes and each has a different color of card base.
Ddd
It was time to do a massive card-making endeavor for Christmas. I have a bin that contains papers (cut into card-front sizes and strips to use for accents), embellishments (tags, stickers, placards...), and word art (including stickers and stamps). I bought some of the papers in 12x12 pads years ago and I am still working my way through them. Even after making over 25 cards in this session, there is plenty of paper and supplies to last for several more years!
I went through the precut papers and laid out one or two of each type for use. Then to each I added an accent piece (usually a strip). The last step was to put an accent with each one.
When I sat down to play, I had all these sets of supplies and I could just combine each into an attractive card.
Today I'll show you two that are very similar. I had two pieces with birch trees printed on them. They are from different parts of a 12 x 12 sheet.
To this first one, I added a strip with text and snowflakes in a light green. These and the round element were all distressed with ink for better definition.
Then I added a clear sticker sentiment to the round tag.
The only thing different on this one is the accent strip.
Those round elements are from a cardstock sheet of tags and journaling cards.
Both of these cards are on white card bases.
Ddd
The sanding of shiny embossing has worked so well I used it again for the card today.
This one was a snowy village embossed on silver. There was so much open space I knew I couldn't restrict the sanding to the raised areas so I intentially went into the background with the tool. I sanded on both the vertical and the horizontal to create a crosshatched look.
I colored in the houses and trees with pastel alcohol markers for a low-key look.
I left the chimney smoke and the snow plain and added just a hint of color as a shadow on the roofs so they would look snow-covered.
This may get a sentiment stamped in Staz-On on the snowy ground.
Ddd
For the treatment of a Christmas tree embossed on shiny red cardstock I combined a technique I used before with a new treatment.
First, I used a sanding block to remove most of the red shine. Then I used alcohol markers to color the raised elements.
I cut out around the tree and mounted it over a shiny gold panel that I had embossed with stripes of holly.
I used a white card base and no sentiment.
Ddd
I'm back to using some of the dry embossed panels I got in a swap. One of these was a wreath (shown before on shiny gold) that was on green cardstock.
I started out by using Distress markers to color in the raised areas with various colors. It was too plain so I added Glossy Accents to the holly leaves and berries.
The rest of the wreath looked plain in comparison so I added two different Stickles. One on the evergreen sprigs and one on the sage-colored filler.
The raised shine on the raised leaves looks particularly nice.
I added this panel to a white base card and added a strip of gold peel-off border at the top and bottom.
I just realized that a LOT of my cards this Christmas are going out without a greeting on the front.
Ddd
A couple of weeks ago I saw Kristina Werner make a Christmas card with some simple watercolor triangles and a black pen. I made a note to try this myself - with a few changes.
Kristina used narrow painters tape to mask of triangles to paint her shapes in. I just free-handed my triangles.
Kristina used watercolors. I used the ink from Distress Markers in seven varieties of green.
Kristina left the foreground white. I used the markers like watercolor to create snowbanks.
We both used fine line marker to draw decorations on the trees and stamped a greeting in black.
Kristina used some metallic markers to color in her ornaments. I used a distress tool to rough up the edges. On some I used distress ink to color the rough edges.
Here is my lineup:
The first has no inking of the edges -
On this one I just inked the edges -
This one got the corners of the page inked as well as the rough edges -
For this one I inked the corners BEFORE roughing the edges and then inked the edges by dragging directly on the ink pad. I also inked the edges of the base card -
This last one I accidently spattered it with ink while doing the watercoloring on another one. I LIKE that effect. I distressed the edges less on this than on the others.
Look at the cool spatter effect -
As it happens I like the tree decorations best on this one, too.
All 5 of them were mounted to a light moss card base.
Ddd
When we were at the beach this summer we saw a cute sign in the window of a shop. I changed the text slightly and customized it to make a gift for friends.
First, I collected a lot of woodgrain photos from the internet and printed them out in 1.5 inch strips across the length of paper. Some were dark, some light, some yellowish and some brownish. Then I printed one pattern to fill a page.
I cut strips of each at 1 inch high.
I pulled out my letter stickers and sorted through to find the ones that I had enough of to make up the words I wanted to use. These were spelled out on the various strips.
I ran the strips through the Xyron to apply adhesive.
The strips were then cut into individual words and arranged on the full sheet of woodgrain that I had set aside.
I printed out the side view of the dog I wanted to use and cut it out. This, too, was given adhesive in the Xyron and adhered to the page of words.
I added a couple of paw-print stickers and then glued the whole thing to a distressed cardstock backing cut to 8.5 x 11.
As soon as I put it in a document frame it will be ready for gifting.
Ddd
Today I'm showing the 21st baby quilt top - the second of the owl fabric used in a disappearing 9-patch.
This looks a lot like yesterday's quilt but the owls are those that were on the outer edges of the cut fabric. The layout was constructed so the cutting of the 9-patch would slice down the center between the owls.
Because the yellow is the large block it makes that the dominant color in the quilt.
I was careful to arrange the owl fabric in the original block so that the finished pieces would face in all directions.
This is number 21 in the project.
Ddd
And Sew on, and Sew forth.... I'm back at the baby quilt tops again.
Remember back to the frog quilt with the yellow star fabric and the bright coral? Well, when I bought those three fabrics, I also bought a cute owl fabric what had the same colors in it. This allowed me to use the same yellow star fabric and the coral.
I also used the same layout and construction.
Today's quilt top uses the owl fabric in the big squares. I didn't fussy-cut the fabric so after I cut it up I divided it into two groups - those with an image near the center of the block (which I used for this quilt) and those with parts of the image off to the sides (which will be used on tomorrow's quilt).
The fabric has three main owl images:
The disappearing 9-patch construction was laid out so tha, when the blocks were quartered the owls would face in every direction.
Here is the finished quilt top.
I used the coral fabric for a 3-inch border.
This is number 20.
Ddd
I have a couple of these embossing folders (Happy Birthday and Thank You) but not one for Christmas. I was delighted to get this impression on shiny silver cardstock.
So, what to do with it?
I decided to just use alcohol markers to color the individual phrases so they would be distinguished from one another.
There were some stars and a sprig of holly to color in as well.
I mounted the panel on a shimmery blue card base.
Ddd
This overly intricate embossed frame was pressed out on shiny gold cardstock. I trimmed smaller to fit on an A2 card.
It certainly did not need more color, texture or... anything really.
I decided to go with a gold peel-off sentiment (NOEL) in the only open place on the panel.
After mounting the panel on a dark pink folded card base, I had room to add gold peel-off borders to all 4 edges.
Ddd
While I had the yummy pearlized cream cardstock out I decided to use it as the card base and sentiment strip for this second gold embossing.
This card was not specifically Christmas but just looked festive anyway.
I added a simple strip of the cream cardstock, framed it out with gold peel-off borders and added a peel-off gold sentiment.
This card, though smaller than the last, is still larger than my usual.
Ddd
Oh. My. Yes.
From a shiny gold oversized dry embossing I cut down right to the edges of the wreath.
I mounted this on a pearlized cream cardstock base and trimmed it with three strips of gold peel-off borders.
I added a peel-off greeting inside the lower panel.
This card i much larger than my usual at 5 x 7 inches.
Ddd
