More new Christmas cards

Here's more Christmas cards for my card workshop Saturday. The third card down is a variation on a card I saw posted from another consultant. Unfortunately I do not remember her name but would be happy to post it if someone else knows.

Easy Around the Holidays card kit - Card One

This weekend I have a workshop in Niles, Michigan and we're going to be making and jazzing up the My Originals' Around the Holidays card kit. My sister in law, Jill, loves these kits. She's not a stamper at all but she enjoys making cards so when she saw these she got all excited because they were easy but pretty and she could embellish to her heart's delight. I know how she feels after playing with this set today. Wow, was it fun to create these cards. To show you, I made the card the way the instructions showed but then did two other cards with a little extra.

This kit comes with 12 card bases, 12 envelopes, 3 sets of stickease to make all the cards, ribbon and pop dots. The instructions are on the back of the stickease.

If you like to distress go ahead and do it with a sponge tool and a cocoa ink pad.

You can also distress the stickers which I did before attaching it to the card. Now if you know this card kit at all you can see that right away I made a mistake and forgot to put the ornament sticker that's supposed to be in the middle of this card base, whoops. I didn't realize it until I finished all the cards and had the three stickers left! That's okay though, mistakes are just opportunities for embellishment! Following the directions in the kit, put the present sticker down first.

Next apply the Christmas tree sticker, letting it overlap the present.

Here's a trick you might not have heard about. Put two pop dots on the back of the Season's Greetings title. Take some powder, I used scented talcum powder but any powder will do, and apply it everywhere on the back of the sticker except on the pop dots. You can use your finger or a paintbrush or q-tip. This will remove the stickiness from the sticker which will make it look much more professional, noone wants to feel stickiness on their card.

Remove the paper from the pop dots and apply on the front letting it overlap the tree. This card would look a little more filled in if I'd added the large sticker at the beginning but, oh well!

Take the ribbon and tie a knot in about a 2 inch piece. Use a glue dot to attach. Roll the dot up so it fits just behind the knot on the ribbon. Here's the basic card, cute!

To add a little sparkle you can use prisma glitter. Our glitter shows the color underneath so no need to buy every glitter color in the world. Take a thin glue pen and apply glue wherever you want the glitter to go. It's like being back in kindergarten, isn't it?

I like to let my glitter really dry well before dumping it off, it prevents it from running if you used too much glue. Once dry, dump it off in the craft tray. This tray has a little hole in the end which makes it really easy to put it back in the glitter jar.

Here's a more sparkly look for the card. You might have to click on it to see the detail.

Here's one more version. This time add liquid glass to the Season's Greeting sticker. Liquid glass dries clear and makes your sticker look like an epoxy embellishment (just one of the cool things liquid glass can do). Instead of glitter, add sparkles instead, one to the top of the tree and four on the right hand side of the card to balance out the "heavy" left side. Now when you make this card, make sure you add the big ornament sticker that I forgot. Tomorrow I'll show you the next card from this kit.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

The challenge I told you about yesterday requires two cards so here's the second using the same School Zone paper. Paper sizes:

Outdoor denim cardstock 6" x 6"

Outdoor denim cardstock .25" x 6

Outdoor denim cardstock .5" x 5"

Card base (any color cardstock) 6" x 12"

Striped paper 5" x 6

Sunflower cardstock 3" x 3"

Colonial white cardstock circle 1.5" in diameter

Sunflower cardstock 1.75" in diameter

Outdoor denim cardstock 2" in diameter

Magic mesh or patterned paper of your choice 3" x 6"

(Ignore the long white paper strip, I changed my mind on that after taking the picture.)

Using your corner rounder, round off two opposite corners. Distress all paper with outdoor denim ink.

Stamp on your white circle with a stamp from the Christmas Melodies stamp set. Use Clover Meadow ink.

On your 6" x 6" outdoor denim cardstock, use the dry embossing down the groove of your trimmer to produce raised lines. Sand them to show off the white core.

Cut the edge of the striped paper with a border punch so that you have a nice look on the right hand side. Attach it to the card front .25" from left hand side.

Glue sunflower square .5" from left hand side of the card front. Glue thinnest outdoor denim strip down along your punched border on the striped paper.

Use your magic mesh vertically over the sunflower piece about 1" from the left of the card front.

Attach all three circles together.

Glue the circle embellishment down on the sunflower square. Add other outdoor denim strip horizontally, 1.25" from the bottom of the card front, flush with the left side. Add four cranberry brads about an inch apart on the strip.

Glue ribbon down right side of the card front. I cut a small piece of ribbon and tied it to the ribbon strip instead of trying to tie a regular knot with the two ends of the ribbon strip, much easier and everything lies flatter. That's it, with me luck on the card challenge!

Holly Jolly Christmas

Now if you're my age, you can't help but hear Burl Ives singing when you see the words, "Holly Jolly Christmas." I don't know why it is but August seems to be the month where I first start thinking about Christmas. I have high hopes every year that I'll get that early start on holiday shopping this month I guess. I definitely do not want winter to come any faster than it already does but sometimes it is nice to think ahead.

I'm going to two big team meetings this weekend and the contest we're having at one of them is to take a non-Christmas pack of paper and make Christmas cards or layouts with it. You can't get more non-Christmas than this School Zone pack! It's no longer available, I received it in one of those mystery boxes back in June and loved it immediately.

I went through the pack and chose 2 patterns and 3 cardstock pieces. Do the same for your card.

Cut as follows:

Pattern paper #1 6" x 3" (striped)
Pattern paper #2 3.5" x 2.75" (grid paper)
Cardstock #1 for card base 12" x 6" (colonial white)
Cardstock #1 circle 1.5" in diameter (colonial white)
Cardstock #2 for card front 6" x 6" (sunflower)
Cardstock #3 2.25" in diameter (outdoor denim)
Cardstock #3 .5" x 5" (outdoor denim)

You'll need some magic mesh in green OR you can cut a strip of pattern paper 2.5" x 6"

Distress everything with outdoor denim (or a brown depending on the paper you are using).

Put the long skinny strip through your crimper and then sand to make the white core show.

Since the 6" x 6" front doesn't fit in a crimper, dry emboss it with lines every .5" x 1" in a grid design then sand.

Do the same to your large circle but in a diagonal (pie) design.

Choose a stamp to use for the small white circle, I used Christmas Melodies.

Stamp a sentiment on the long white strip. I used a stamp from our brand new (not available yet) stamp set Holiday Trinkets.

Lay the 3" x 6" piece down about 1" from the left side. Glue.

Attach the 3.5" x 2.75" piece a quarter inch down from top, one inch from the right side.

Place the strip of outdoor denim .5" x 5" piece a quarter inch from left side of striped piece.

Lay your self adhesive magic mesh horizonatally down one inch from the top (you can use the substitute pattern paper instead).

Attach your Merry Christmas strip one and half inches down from the top of the page, about an eighth of an inch from the left side of the striped paper.

Put your circles together and glue them on the bottom right quadrant of your card.

Add three matching brads down the left hand side of the striped paper and a cute window circle over the circular stamp to make it really pop out.

That's it for today, don't forget to sign up as a follower if you haven't already.

An Early Christmas

I'm preparing a Christmas card workshop so I've been experimenting with a few different cards. I don't have tutorials yet because my business is very busy this week but I'll get some up soon. In the meantime, here are some cards I might make! This first one is so simple, random stamping makes the base of the card with a simple strip of paper across the bottom third for sentiment stamping. Brads complete the look. The stamp set is Gratitude.


This is a 6 x 6 card, my new favorite size to make. The colors are juniper, creme brulee and cranberry, the stamp set is Vintage Christmas. I highlighted the circle with a window charm.

Back to a 5 1/2 by 4 1/4 card, the colors are creme brulee, juniper, olive, and tulip, the stamp set is Christmas Melodies and the paper is......a secret. Find out when the new catalog comes out in September! The dove is sparkled with Prisma Glitter. The patterns for card two and three are from the incredible Wishes book, you have to buy this book, I can't even properly explain how much I love it!