Reindeer with Birch Trees and Candles with Poinsettias

Jingle Belles wants to see animals on our Christmas cards, and My Time to Craft Christmas is specifying winter animals.  What better than a reindeer?  Which means I can also link it up with Christmas Cards All Year Round as they want to see reindeer.

I rubbed Distress Speckled Egg over an embossing folder and ran it through with mixed media cs.  I tore a snowy hill out of white cs and stamped my sentiment on it.  Using various brown Distress inks, I smooshed a scrap of cs and die cut a reindeer from it.  I cut it again from scrap cs and glued them together for more strength and dimension.

Next up, ABC Christmas Challenge is "U for Unusual Colours".  I did a candle / poinsettia stamp in shades of blue and mauve - definitely not a typical Christmas card for me!

I stamped the image and sentiment in navy ink, coloured it with Cosmic Shimmer Botanical Stains (lovely muted colours), splattered with some of the leftover colours, and bordered with navy on an off-white card base.

  

Supplies:
Stamps - unknown sentiment
Ink - Versafine Clair Twilight, Distress Speckled Egg, various Distress browns
Paper - mixed media cs, white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Sizzix embossing folder,

Supplies:
Stamps - unknown candle / poinsettia stamp, Make an Impression sentiment
Ink - Versafine Clair Twilight
Paper - watercolour paper, off-white and navy cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Cosmic Shimmer botanical stains

Candy Canes for Peace on Earth

The new Peace on Earth challenge has a mood board full of Christmas treats like candy canes, gingerbread, etc.  I was especially inspired by the bottom left image with the greenery and the candy canes.  It inspired me to pull out a very old stamp - one of the first I ever bought when I started making Christmas cards.

Stamped and coloured with coloured pencils, including a metallic gold pencil for the ribbon.  I trimmed it with a stitched rectangle die, bordered it with dark green cs, popped it up on fun foam and added it to a candy cane dp background.

Here's the Peace on Earth mood board.  We'd love to have you join us with a card inspired by the mood board, or an "anything Christmas goes" card.

I'm also linking this up to a couple of other challenges - Inkspirational "Layer It" (I have three layers on top of my card base) and 12 Months of Christmas "Stitched" (I used a stitched rectangle die on my focal image).

  

Supplies:
Stamps - either Serendipity or Creative Images candy canes, unknown sentiment
Ink - Versafine Onyx black
Paper - white and green cs, candy cane dp
Size - A2
Accessories - coloured pencils, gold metallic pencil, Lil Inker stitched rectangle die, fun foam

A Tiny Snowman and A Recycled Ornament

Christmas Cards All Year Round wants snowmen.

I stamped the image and sentiment onto the centre of a piece of watercolour paper, and used watercolour paints to colour it.  Then I placed it in a snowflake frame embossing folder and ran it through my Cuttlebug.  It came out partly embossed normally and partly letterpress.  I really like the look so am going to check for more stamps that will fit in that centre section.

My other card today is for 52 Christmas Card Throwdown's recycling challenge.  A friend and I regularly go out for tea and pastries at a lovely little French cafe.  I always save the foil cardboard thingies that the pastries come on as they look exactly like a Christmas ornament.  So that is the recycled item on my card.

I die cut the holly out of some smooshed green leftovers and the word joy out of some red glitter cs and glued both to the gold "ornament".  Because the foil is so slippery, the glue oozed out from under it in a lot of places.  There was no way to get it off so I sprinkled fine glitter all over the sticky sections.  It looks better in real life - quite sparkly - but in the photo it looks kind of splotchy.  I added red Stickles to the berries on the holly, and wrapped red twine around the top and through a hole I punched in the top of the ornament and through the card base.

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Penny Black
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, off white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - Ultimate Crafts Snowflake Frame embossing folder, watercolour paints

Supplies for card 2:
Paper - white cs, leftover smooshed green scrap
Size - 4.75" square
Accessories - holly die, Joy die, red Stickles, red metallic twine

Glitter on Acetate

The Group of Seven Cardmakers are trying out painting with glitter on acetate.  Our website suggests two different methods.  I chose the one described in this video and made this card:

I stamped and heat embossed the flowers on the front of the acetate.  I stamped with StazOn which normally can't be used with embossing powder as it dries too fast, but on acetate it dries more slowly.

Then working from the back, I used a clear-drying glue and glitter to colour the poppies.

When you first turn it over, it just looks like white blobs of glue from the front - it needs a few hours for the glue to completely dry and turn clear, and then you can see your lovely colours of glitter.

I die cut three layers of the frame, glued two of them together and glued the acetate layer on top of them, and then added the third one to frame it.  This raises it slightly from the card base and gives a bit more of a see-through quality to it.

If you're interested in getting covered in glitter (as I was) and making a glittery mess of your craft desk (ha ha), please give one of our techniques a try and link it up at Group of Seven and inspire us some more!

Supplies:

Stamps - Penny Black
Ink - StazOn Black
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - acetate, glitter, MFT pierced dot frame