Christmas Wreath Card | Christmas Series #5

i friends! I created this card with a wreath making die set that I've owned for quite a while, but I enjoy using it to make wreaths for holiday and non-holiday cards. With the creation of this card, I've finally completed all of my Christmas cards. The majority have already been mailed and this one and one other will be hand delivered. Happy Holidays to all of you!

To create the front card panel for this A2 sized card, I used Gina K. Design's Masking Magic and cut four strips and adhered them to the right-hand side of the card front to mask off areas of the white cardstock that I didn't want to get watercolor paint on. Then, using my Kuretake watercolor pans, I painted a red, green and silver stripe down the unmasked areas on the card front.

Next, I utilized the Rubbernecker Stamps "Wreath Set" dies to cut all the elements for my wreath from a light and dark color green cardstock. I also cut some of the twig wreath elements from some chocolate brown cardstock. After gluing all the little leaves and twigs together to form the wreath I set those aside to dry while I created the sentiment.

For the Merry Christmas sentiment, I used the Spellbinders' "Christmas Mix & Match Sentiments" die set. I cut two copies of each die from white cardstock and one of each from black cardstock. I glued the two white layers together and then glued the black ones on top of the white ones to add dimension to the Merry Christmas.

Assembly time: I used liquid glue to adhere the wreath and the sentiment to the card front. After that was completed, I used Ranger "Cranberry" Stickles to the tips of each of the twigs to create the look of holly berries. Once those were dry, I adhered the card front to the A2, top folding card base and this card was complete.

I hope you enjoyed my take on a Christmas wreath card and it inspires you to create one yourself. So much fun!

Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…

Holiday Gift Tags | Christmas Series #4

Hi Friends! Today I’m sharing some easy-to-make holiday gift tags using a variety of products from various companies.

Each year I gather all my tag dies and the Christmas-related stamps and dies and I’ll spend a couple Saturdays making an assortment of tags to attach to my holiday gifts. I thought I would share a few of them with you to possibly provide some design inspiration. I love creating the tags, each one is its own little piece of quick to create art.

This one was created using the Sizzix / Tim Holtz die set called "Yuletide" (666073). I die cut the wreath elements from some Simon Says Stamp gold metallic cardstock, Cardstock Warehouse Stardream Silver matte silver cardstock, and some green cardstock scraps I had in my stash. I completed the little wreath by adding some Honey Bee Stamps white pearl embellishments to make a cute little wreath tag. I glued two tags together so I would have a place to stamp the To and From lines on the back.

The nutcracker tag was created using the Pawsome Stamps "Crackin' Christmas" nutcracker stamp colored with Copic markers. The background of the tag was made by running a white piece of cardstock through the diecutting machine with the Simon Says Stamp "Scandinavian Christmas" embossing folder. After the paper was embossed and cut into a tag, I used the Altenew "Almond Butter" ink pad lightly across the raised areas to highlight the embossed design. For the greeting I used the Merry & Bright sentiment from Altenew's "Holiday Tag Sentiments" stamp set. The final touch was simply adding a few gold-colored sequins placed here and there.

I hope you found a couple ideas for creating your own tags, they are really quite fun to make. Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…

HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive | Silver Village | Christmas Series #3

Hi Friends! Sharing some more homemade cheer that I created for the Hero Arts HeroFest Holiday Cheer Card Drive. The cards collected by Hero Arts will be donated to the Bay Area Rescue Mission in December. I hope you find inspiration in this holiday card installment for creating your own cheerful, Christmas cards.

I’m so excited to see all the makers creating Christmas cards! For this A2, landscape-oriented card my inspiration was the Hero Arts Neighborhood Houses Fancy Dies. I’m not a card maker who drafts everything out on paper first. No, no. I always start with a stamp, die set, or embossing folder and then decide how I can work this exciting product to fit the card I want to make. Backwards way of doing things… probably. Haha!

I started this project by taking a piece of textured, gray-ish cardstock and cutting it to be 4-1/4” x 5-1/2”, then grabbed a piece of white cardstock that was just a tad smaller than A2 size and used Tim Holtz Distress Oxide in Speckled Egg and blended it all over the cardstock with the exception of the bottom portion since I was going to cover that up and then used Tim Holtz Distress Oxide in Weathered Wood to barely tint the outer edges of the panel to make it a tiny bit darker. I splattered Dina Wakely White Gloss Spray with a paint brush all across the panel to give it a snowy look. I set this aside to dry.

Using Avery Elle Slimline Border dies, I cut two strips of Cardstock Warehouse Diamond Print Glitter White cardstock to be my snowy hills for the card. I glued the first snowy hill to the inked card panel about 1/3 the way up and used Simon Says Stamp 3D Foam Squares to adhere the second, smaller snowy hill below the first one ensuring I didn’t attach the foam squares too close to the top edge so I would have room to nestle my houses and trees behind it when I was ready.

Next, I used the Hero Arts Houses Fancy Dies and die cut all the houses out of Cardstock Warehouse Stardream Silver cardstock and cut them a second time from the Diamond Print Glitter White cardstock that I used for the snowy hills. I cut the rooftops off the white glitter cardstock houses (since that’s all I would be using) and discarded the rest. Then I applied a thick layer of Tim Holtz Distress Collage Medium to all the white glittery rooftop pieces and, before the glue dried, I coated them with Pink & Main’s Flock with Glitter in the color Sparkling Cottontail. After the flock/glue dried, I glued the flocked rooftops to the top of each of the silver cardstock houses and set those aside to dry.

Now for the trees. I used the tree dies from the Hero Arts Houses Fancy Dies and cut eleven trees out of the same textured gray-ish cardstock I used for the A2 card front panel. To give them a weathered, metallic silver look I used the Sterling Tim Holtz Foundry Wax and applied it quickly to all the trees by “pouncing” it on with a small paint brush and then melting the Foundry Wax with my heat gun.

I adhered three of the completed houses and a few of the gilded trees to the back snowy hill on my card front simply using wet glue, then I popped the front row of houses and gilded tree up with Simon Says Stamp 3D Foam Squares.

For the sentiment, I stamped the Merry Christmas stamp from the Hero Arts Holiday Ornaments stamp set onto a scrap piece of white cardstock with Altenew Clear Embossing Ink and used Ranger Super Fine Silver embossing powder, then heat set the embossing powder with my heat gun. I glued the sentiment to a scrap piece of the textured, gray-ish cardstock and adhered it to my card front using Simon Says Stamp 3D Foam Squares.

This card was a super easy one to make, but it did take some extra time since I had to wait for the glued flock to dry, but I think it was worth the wait.

Thank you so much for stopping by to see me - I appreciate you doing so!

Until next time…