Merry Christmas!

From my home to yours.

This picture is of my tree from last year.  I've been working so much this year there wasn't time to put up a tree.  :(

Anyway, I hope you have an awesome holiday and best wishes for the New Year.

I probably won't have any posts until 2014, so I wish you a fantastic week and I'll see you in the new year.

Charm(ed) Christmas

This was another easy card to put together.  I had the charms lying around and bought the pipe cleaners at the dollar store.  My original plan was to string the charms on the pipe cleaner, but it gets too thick and messes up the strands, so I glued the charms to the paper with a hot glue gun and laid the pipe cleaner on top.  To finish off I added the sentiment in silver ink.

Christmas Ornaments Card

This card took a bit longer as I had to punch out the letters from a magazine sheet and fussy cut the ornaments.  The pine branches were leftovers from an earlier card.  Everything was then glued on (though I only glued the branch stems so the needles would stick up a bit).

Simple Santa Card

This is another card I whipped up quickly using a sticker and a few stamps.

Joy Skates

I interrupt your scheduled posts with another live card.  Marianne Design Challenge has come out with their new challenge to create a clean and simple card.  As it was my day off I decided to participate by making a card.  I had to sneak one of my Christmas present dies out of its packaging for this, but I don't think my husband who never - ever - reads this blog will notice. ;)

The dies are all Marianne Design, with Memento ink rubbed on.  I got the sentiment at Michaels, the Canadian craft chain (it was in their cheap stamp bin one year).  I added some glitter red glue berries to opposing corners and some glitter pen to the blades of the skates (which you can't see in the picture).

Naughty and Nice Stockings

Again, I needed some cards and fast, so I pulled out stickers I bought a while back and whipped up some clean and simple cards.  Here's the first:

Polar Wishes

This is a more complex card I made back when I had time to make cards. :P

I love this polar bear stamp from Some Odd Girl.  I stamped the hat, then masked it and stamped the bear.  I coloured him using pencil crayons (just some grey shading) and the hat with markers.  I then die cut him out.  I tried the 'ink the die to get a solid frame' technique, which didn't quite work as intended.

For the background I stamped snowflakes and sponged on some ink for a blowing snow effect.

The label was die cut, stamped and also sponged with ink.

Snowman Bead Ornament

I don't actually know where to get the materials for this, if it was a kit or purchased separately, as I found the pieces for it at the bottom of a box of ornaments.  It's 3 sizes of clear beads, with a narrow black bead and a thicker black bead for a hat.  I tied it all together using red ribbon (though a silver pipe cleaner might have given it a better snow feel.

Beary Love Ornament

This is the first ornament I made last year, but the most time consuming one, which is why I'm posting it last.

I started out by cutting some acetate with a circular die.  I only cut part of the die because I needed piece at the top to attach to the ornament.  I made a bit of a mess out of it cutting it down to size, so I should have cut an actual ornament shape on my Silhouette.  Ah well.

I glued a card topper I got from a magazine to the acetate, along with a few silver snowflakes.  I curled the acetate so I could fit it into the ornament, glued it on, then added some different coloured sequins and pom poms.

Holiday Snowman

This was a pretty quick card to make.  I already had the velvet sticker coloured from a previous year and the border was scrap from another card.

I started out by laying the snowflake paper on my cardstock.  Then the border with the sentiment stamped on.  The sticker was partly covered by punched snowflakes to make the lines less harsh.

Gingerbread Christmas Card

I wanted to submit a card to Lawn Fawn's CHA challenge, so I spruced up my gingerbread card idea.  I took some of my unused embossed gingerbread cutouts I did before using Lawn Fawn's Sweet Christmas set and used pop-dots to attach them to one of my Silhouette cut pans (I'd already done the glitter pen on the embossed shapes and the white gel pen around the pan).

I carefully measured and cut my matting papers, punching the edge of the red sheet.  I added some Lawn Fawn gold sparkle cord (taped on the back because my bow refused to look good).  I stamped the sentiment, also from Sweet Christmas, in gold on the green cardstock.  I then attached my layers.

Some Odd Girl Bliss

I've got a new card today, one that's not Christmas themed.  I scrabbled some time together to make this card for Some Odd Girl's See Your Project at CHA contest.  CHA is a big craft show for professionals, so it would be amazing to have a project at one of the display booths there.  I tried to make this card as perfect as I could (and therefore rejected two stamped and inked panels due to smudging).

This was a fairly simple - though time-consuming - card to make.

I stamped the image on white cardstock and die cut it out.  I then, very carefully (due to my previous errors) added ink around the edges, trying not to smudge it or make the colour uneven.

I picked out the backing papers and cut them, using an embossing punch on the corners of the darker page.

Finally I coloured the image and added a few silver and gold highlights and then put the layers together.

Pom pom Christmas Tree Ornament

This is another quick ornament to make.  I just filled a plastic ornament I bought at Michaels with some sparkly pom poms I got at the dollar store.  Voila!

Poinsettia Christmas Tree Ornament

This is an ornament I made for my tree last year but didn't share on the blog.

I cut out a bunch of different sized poinsettia flowers on my Silhouette SD (plus 2 leaves, though one didn't cut properly, which is why it's only partially visible on the finished piece).  I then scored the flowers to make them look a little more real and added glitter glue to the edges.  I assembled all the pieces, added a few gold cardstock berries and a piece of ribbon to hang it from.