Christmas again!

Well, I think I must be on a roll cause here I go again, this time with two Christmas cards! The first one is using the Christmas Pines set again and I was inspired by a card made by Shelly Godby, I followed her design but used copper paper to mold one of my pine cones. The card base is Garden Green, I coupled that with Mint Macaroon (the ferns, the DSP and the ribbon, which, by the way, is soft linen, so manageable and easy to make a bow). I first stamped the ferns on the card base and then kind of followed them on by two-tone stamping them on to the mat of Whisper White. I then die cut some more ferns and put them on top of the stamped images to give it more depth and dimension. The cones are both stamped, but the top piece of the larger one to the left is die cut with copper. As I have said before, Christmas Pines is a beautiful set and the possibilities for use are endless!

Now, on to my second card! This is using a new stamp set, Jar of Cheer, once again a beautiful Christmas set that you can find on page 25 of the new Holiday catalog! It coordinates with the Everyday Jar Framelits from the main catalog on page 192. It's a sliding pop-up card, when it's open it stands on it's own! For paper, I used Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla and DSP from the 'This Christmas' stack. I made a shaker with the jar, cutting all the pieces using the framelits, stamping the candle, coloring the image with my markers (So Saffron, Garden Green with a little Pumpkin Pie in the flame) and filling it with snowflakes. These snowflakes I have had for some time, I got them in a kit from Gina K. Designs last year I think. Making a shaker is now so easy as Stampin Up has come out with foam adhesive strips (page 182 of the main catalog) that you can actually stretch around your image, whatever shape it is! Awesome! Behind the jar is a tree from the stamp set Lovely as a Tree, one of the oldest stamp sets Stampin Up has, thank goodness, it's my favorite - LOL! I used the 'thumping' method to color the tree (thumping is using markers, minimum of 2, to color the tree then 'huff' and stamp). Behind the tree, so to speak, I stamped snowflakes, using Soft Sky, stamping off first, just to give a little added interest. I added Dazzling Diamonds to the tree (unfortunately retired from Stampin Up, but you could use Wink of Stella) to make a beautiful sparkle in the background. When it's 'popped-up' the sentiment shows at the bottom. Again, a wonderful stamp set that I can see myself using a lot this Christmas!  

I hope you like my two Christmas Cards, if you need any of the supplies used to make them there is a link at the top right of this post that will take you directly to my on-line store. I would really appreciate your business! Also, as an aside, I have instructions for making the pop-up card if you would like them, my email is on my on-line website, just shoot me a line and I'll be glad to send them to you.

Christmas Pines

Well, I finally jumped on the 'Christmas in July' bandwagon, except that mine is in August! I just received my shipment of goodies from the new Holiday Catalog and the first set I wanted to play with was Christmas Pines along with the coordinating thinlets, Pretty Pines! This is a gorgeous set and you too will be able to order it in 10 days! If you have a catalog, it's on page 19 and if you don't, please let me know and I will be glad to send you one! It has 22 photopolymer stamps and 13 dies in the bundle and, I can tell you, I love it! I know I always say that, but it's true, and truly Stampin' Up outdoes themselves every time! So, on to my card. I used a sketch from a blog I follow, CARDTV  Mary doesn't stamp much, she uses her Cricut machine, but just recently she provided us, her followers, 14 sketches which I thought were awesome! I started with a card base of Very Vanilla, a mat of Cherry Cobbler (another No.1 color in my opinion!) and a top layer of This Christmas DSP. The three squares are cut in Very Vanilla with the Layering Squares Framelits. The two cones in the middle have a top layer (cut with the dies) of the new Copper paper - love it! The cones either side are embossed with the, also new, copper embossing powder. I colored two of the pearl basic jewels with a copper Sharpie pen and placed them at the top of the cones. The foliage beneath and around the cones I filled with cuts from the Pretty Pines thinlets, covering the 'mistletoe' also with pearls and wound around that is some of the (here we go again!) new copper metallic thread - awesomeness! The sentiment is also from the same stamp set.I hope you like it, I think I'm going to be using this set much more in the not too distant future!

Washi Tape!

Today I have a thank you card I made for a friend who very kindly make me some of her famous Zucchini Bread! I'm usually the one who bakes around here, so I was very pleasantly surprised to say the least! It was so good, very moist, I definitely couldn't have made it better! So, on with my card! It's taken me a while to 'latch on' to Washi Tape, but I'm so glad I got a pack of the new Floral Boutique Designer Washi Tape, it's awesome! Because I wanted to use all three of the Washi Tapes, I decided to make a monchromatic card, I've never done one before and I must say I'm very pleased with this one.  I used the Touches of Texture stamp set (page 141 of the new yearly catalog), it consists of 15 stamps in all, I love this set! I also used Vertical Greetings (page 109 of the catalog), this is a set of 9 stamps and a first for Stampin' Up in the vertical greetings category - love it! So my 'mono' color is Night of Navy, another of my very favorite colors from Stampin' Up. What's also great is the fact that there is a whole suite of products that match exactly to Night of Navy! You just can't go wrong. So to match my Night of Navy Card base I used ink, stamp and write marker, and Bakers Twine all in Night of Navy! I actually stamped, tone on tone, on the card base with another of the stamps from Touches of Texture, not sure if you can see that or not. To color the flower I used my marker to put some ink around the center and then used the Wink of Stella pen to blend it to the outer petals and I did this on the dragonfly as well. I'm not sure if you can see the beautiful shimmer it gives in the picture, but it's gorgeous in person, so to speak! To give the card a nice finishing touch I put a metal rimmed pearl in the center of the flower. I hope you like this card - and I hope my friend does too!