I always run out of time around the holiday to get cards photographed, uploaded, and blogged. This year was no exception in spite of the fact that I had a lot less to do! Christmas Day was lovely, and we've now had a couple of pretty low key days at home. I haven't had my usual energy or motivation to work in the craft room. I'm hoping to get my mojo back this week! I did, however, get a few more of the Christmas cards I made ready to post, and thought I'd share them now that most (hopefully, all) have received their cards.
I'll start with one of my favorites. I only made one of these. It's a bit more time intensive, but this year I'm hoping to get Christmas cards made throughout the year, so if I come up with a card like this, I'll have the leisure to make several of them.
I embossed Pinkfresh Studio's "Winterberry Background" in white, and then ink blended over it. All the die cuts are from The Greetery: "Botani Cuts: Pine Bough" and "Fit to Be Tied."
I added a bit of glitter to the tops of the pinecones and the evergreen boughs and some details to the pinecones with colored pencils.
The sentiment from Simon Says "Holiday Greeting Mix 1" was embossed in silver on the same Enchanted Evening (PTI) paper as the card base.
The next card comes from a Papertrey Ink set I've had for awhile called "Santa's Sleigh." It has two main images, and I posted a card-here- with one of those images earlier as part of a daily coloring challenge. The second image is so different, and I love both cards. Again, I made only one of these, but I'm likely to replicate this one again for next year.
I colored the image with Copic markers, die cut it with a circle die and used two slightly larger circles to die cut a red and then a gold circle to frame it. The circles are from Ellen Hutson's "Essential Circles" dies.
The gold embossed sentiment is from an even older Papertrey Ink set, "Signature Christmas." One of my favorite sentiments from that set disappeared somewhere during this year's crafting marathon, and I'm sad that the set is no longer available. There are still a few Christmas challenges out there, so I'll be entering this in the current Christmas Kickstart Challenge: Christmassy.
This card was one of the last ones I made. On the first few I used Nuvo drops for the berries but on the last set I changed to small red pearls from AMuse. Had the other cards not already gone in the mail, I might have tried to change to the pearls which I like much better.
One of the very satisfying parts of crafting this season was having time to pull out stamps I hadn't used in awhile, or had never used. This is one I've used in the past, but a very different design. The "Winter Wreath" is by Avery Elle.
You can almost see the beautiful sheen to the red metallic paper used to die cut the "JOY" by Savvy. This is a die I've had for years, and I think I pull it out every holiday.
The small sentiment is from WPlus9's "Hand Lettered Holiday."
The next card is one of the most unusual ones I've made. I came across a piece of patterned paper in a Pinkfresh Studio pack as I was looking for something else. I immediately thought of the Papertrey Ink "Warmest Wishes" set and the adorable polar bear with the wonderful sweater. I was pretty sure I could use the patterned paper as a background.
The colors were determined by the patterned paper, and this turned out to be a very quick card to make. I would have made several had I had more paper! I'm throwing this in the AAA Cards: Made in Minutes/Optional Christmas Challenge.
It's almost impossible to see in either photograph, but I added some Glitter Glue to the tops of the mountains. I die cut the panel with a "Stitched Rectangle" from Simon Says, and attached the bear with some dimensional tape. The sentiment is from the "Warm Wishes" set.
Finally a card I made this year with a set I purchased last year for this very image! I used Simon Says' "Holiday Greeting Mix 1" set frequently last year, but I never stamped and colored this image which I loved from the moment I saw it. It's another quick image to color.
I embossed the image in gold on Bristol paper and watercolored it. The gold embossing makes the watercoloring go much more quickly. Here it's easier to see:
All the card needed then was to cut down the image and layer it with red and green papers. I used Concord and 9th's Evergreen and Cranberry papers--the perfect Christmas colors.
Now it's on to January birthdays, replenishing my "Thinking of You" cards, and getting out my thank you notes.
