Christmas Ornament Card

I don't normally do the artsy type pictures, but here is
one. I wanted to show the 3-D of the bulb over the
rest of the card front.

The metallic gold flourish and lines are a heavy gold foil gift wrap attached
to card stock with a thin layer of Crafters Ultimate Pick glue.
The Victorian Flourish from Cheery Lynn Designs was
cut apart to make the central focal point on the bulb.
The bands of gold are the finishing touches.
It just looked so much better with them in place.

The bulb is positioned over a "ribbon" of embossing folder
textured card stock layered over brushed gold gift wrap.
The Merry Christmas in the oval and the brushed gold gift wrap
large scallop oval under it are by Spellbinders, as is the
bulb die cut.

The Merry Christmas is a free font - Zenda.
It was created in PSP X.

Christmas Card Challenge

Split Coast Stampers has a Christmas Card Challenge.
You are to make a Christmas card or two or three or four
every month till December.
Now I just thought that was a great idea.
I have been playing with Spellbinders 2010 Christmas bulb die
and one of their original Christmas bulb dies.

Here are the results of my efforts.
The bulbs have been cut from Polished Stone.
Polished Stone uses alcohol inks on glossy paper.

The textured layer under the bulbs is also glossy paper
that has been textured in a Cuttlebug 5 x 7 embossing folder.

After the polished stone paper was die cut I began the fun
of decorating my bulbs.
For this us used Cheery Lynn Designs
Victorian Flourish and a border die from them
that looks like tatting.

The gold used for the Cheery Lynn Designs is
a fairly heavy metallic gold foil gift wrap that has
been attached to cards stock using a thin layer of
tacky glue. It works best when the glue is spread on the
card stock with some type of credit card tool or a squeegee
kind of tool. You want a thin layer to cover the entire piece
of card stock. After putting the foil on the glued card stock
I ran over it with a brayer, using a lot of pressure to get the
bubbles out.

These die cuts really do look exactly like those expensive stickers.
For the wider bands of gold I first scored it in my ScorPal, then
carefully cut it while still in the ScorPall with a click blade cutter.

The final touches involved black sponging all around the edges of the
bulbs. Next is pieces of paper egg carton attached to
the backs of the blubs to add a little dimension.
A very thin piece of gold foil was added at the top of
each bulb to "hang" it.
BEWARE!!!!
Decorating these little bulbs is really addictive.

And the final product will be on the blog tomorrow.
While I like these designs, there is one that is my favorite.
There also some also rans that are my trial and error
phase of designing. Don't think you are going to get to see those.
They are visiting my trash can.

Framed Poinsettia

While this is not one of my favorites, There are parts of it that I really like. I love that Spellbinders Fleur de Lis square. To cut it put a square die inside of the Fleur de Lis square. I usually tape them in several places to prevent shifting while they are being cut.

Sadly the dark brown under the poinsettia layer is too wide and the striped pine cone and pine bough paper under it just do not match. Another on of those visions in the head that didn't pan out. I think I have other Christmas papers that would have worked a lot better.

Noel Tile

This is such a fun card. It was one of those ideas that floated around in my head for a few weeks before I had time to complete it.

The Sizzix snowflake embossing folder makes a lovely background as a base for the whole design. Across the bottom is a pine forest punched border from EK Success. The dark green is "shadowed" by a second punched border in gold gift wrap.

Now for the Noel Tile portion. The letters are from a Sizzix's Trixie alphabet. They have been mounted on green and then red layers of card stock.

The finished letter tiles were carefully placed evenly on gold gift wrap. The gold was then trimmed to an even border using a deckle scissors.

More Easy Christmas Cards

Two cards with the same basic design. These are relatively simple cards, using ribbon and stickers from K & Company.

The background on the plain white card stock card base is a Sizzix embossing folder. The snowflakes are rather random and make a very versatile beginning layer.

The ribbons can be seen on the inside of the card. It has been attached with double sided tape. The joining seam is under the sticker layer.

Spellbinder made the oval, rectangle and large scallop rectangle dies used on these cards.

Fast and Easy Christmas Card

Here is the very simplest of cards. Fast, easy and impressive!

I began with a plain white card base. Use the Sizzix snowflake embossing folder to create a textured overlay to attach to the front of the card.

Now the easy part. Find a fairly large 3-D sticker and center it on the front.

Simple and elegant.

White and Ivory Snowflakes

Begin with a white card base. Sizzix made the embossing folder that was used to create the snowflake texture that was attached to the front of the card.

Cream or ivory card stock is the color of the Spellbinder die cut snow flakes that are over the texture. A very subtle simple card.

3rd and 4th Christmas Designs for 2011

Here are two versions of basically the same card design.
The metallic fold is a brushed gold Christmas gift wrap paper. This is the time of year to purchase all kinds of metallic papers to use all year round. They are an inexpensive resource, especially for layering. One roll of gift wrap goes a long long way when only used on cards.

You will note in this first card that the gift wrap kind of sank into the snow flake texture.

The letters are cut with Cuttlebug's Hippie Chick alphabet. Spellbinder's long rectangle nesting dies were used to cut the rectangles under the letters on both cards.


EK Success made the tree punch. Note the shadowing of gold behind the trees.

The card base is from a Sizzix random snowflake embossing folder.

I like the second card the best. Which one do you like?

2nd Christmas Design for 2011

Here it is. I am not particularly thrilled with this design.
I like the basic concept of the letter tiles, but somehow this one just doesn't cut it.

The card base is covered with a snowflake texture that was made using a Sizzix embossing folder.

The Noel letter were cut from a Christmas paper. I used the Trixie Girl Sizzix alphabet. Spellbinder's Nesting Squares were used for the red and green layers under the letter.

The tree border is an EK Success border punch.

The Last of the Christmas Cards

I was sorting out my stash of cards and found some older cards that I had done. The red and black card was so dramatic and elegant. I think I need to use my mulberry paper more often.

The collage stamp was used over a Glimmer Mists shimmery background. Sadly the pictures just can't do justice to the beauty of the Glimmer Mists. The stamp is unmounted and I have no idea who is the maker.

A piece of scrapbook paper attached to the front of a card base, an evergreen tree embossed with green sparkly embossing powder and a Christmas phrase. A quick, easy and elegant card.

This is a window card. The snowflake is a Sizzix cut and emboss die. Two snowflakes glued together with the fishing line in the middle. The frame hides where the glue has been applied to hold the snowflake in place in the window.

The phrase is computer generated. I have no idea who is the maker of the snowflake stamp. Another of those purchased years ago at a convention as an unmounted.

Christmas Card Designs

It's getting to be that time of year again. I have been playing with several ideas for Christmas cards. While I like both of these designs, they are to labor intensive to make 50 of them.

The pine bough image is from Hero Arts. The lovely Merry Christmas image on the top card is from a company called My Sentiments Exactly. The Merry Christmas with holly is from Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers, which is no longer in business. The pine cone image on the second card is from PSX, aka Personal Stamp Exchange. I have found a few of their stamps at Sierra Enterprises. They have a very limited supply and may not have the pine cone stamp.

I used Ranger Distressed inks for the pine bough and the distressing around the edges of the cards.

The phrases on both cards have been embossed with fineline black embossing powder. Gold fineline embossing powder was used on the pine cone.

Fleas Navidog!

The phrase stamp is from Viva Las Vegastamps of where else but Las Vegas. Every time I see this stamp I chuckle. Could be because I am an avid dog lover, having a Scottie and a Pom inside and a Blue Heeler outside. (well outside most of the time)

The puppies playing stamp is by Inkadinkado and the pine bough is from PSX, for the new stampers that is Personal Stamp Exchange, a company that we old timers in the stamping addiction miss greatly.