I’m working on a couple of samples for Christmas Cards to send as samples to an engineering firm that wants 100-125 Christmas cards!  yowser!  I have to start now if I’m going to finish, especially if there’s all this embossing.  Anyway, I really got the inspiration for this card from Amanda Coughlin, a fellow Stampin’ Up! team member friend from Oldsmar.  You can see her more sophisticated and GORGEOUS card here.  I really loved the non-traditional colors she used with this set.

I love embossing cards, especially during the holidays.  It always gives that extra special wow factor.  I know it’s sometimes time consuming, but once I have all the stuff out, at that point, I may as well do a hundred!   The stamp set I used for this card is called Snow Swirled.  The main image of this card is stamped in Baja Breeze on whisper white cardstock and the smaller snowflake images are stamped in Pacific Point.  The small snowflake on the top of the tree and the larger snowflake is stamped with Encore Silver, and then embossed with Silver embossing powder.  I used our snow blossom punch which coordinates with this stamp and popped it up with dimensionals.  Besides the tree, my favorite image in this set is the largest snowflake, which I didn’t use here because it’s too big, but it’s design is simply gorgeous!  Check it out online!

The main image is distressed on the edges with Pacific Point, matted in brushed silver cardstock, and then matted again on Pacific Point.  The sentiment outside and inside is stamped with Pacific Point and matted on Pacific Point cardstock.   I used our silver cording, which I’m so pleased to have back.  I use rolls of this at christmas time for ornaments and tags, and wrapping gifts, but it really works with this card too adding just another touch of silver!

This is what the inside looks like:

I hope you take a closer look at this set using the links above. It’s so pretty! 

Lots of posts coming this weekend, so stop by frequently.  Thank you for visiting.

I’ve always associated the christmas season with that old fashioned song from Bing Crosby, that my grandmother played over and over.  And yet, when I moved to Florida, it made me laugh to hear that song, since I traded the large pines of NH and the "White Christmas" atmosphere for the palm trees and hibiscus!    But you know what?  I’ve always just loved snowmen, and now I’m crazy about them!  I think I started collecting snowmen, when I didn’t collect snow on my car outside!

Anyway, today I have two cards which were easy to make and oh-so-cute!  They are samples of the new catalog, page 37, B&C, made for the catalog challenge.

They are both 4×4 textured cardstock bases.  This one used Mellow Moss textured cs for the base, and behind the snowman, is chocolate chip cs stamped with Polka Dot background stamp.  I made a half dozen more of these to give out as samples, and decided to use Itty Bitty Backgrounds stamp instead.  Either way, they need to be stamped in white craft ink, or pigment ink (not dye ink), to simulate the snow.  This is the only thing I changed in the card.  Then there is a small piece of rose red cardstock attached to the back of that.  The sentiment comes from my favorite holiday stamp set last year, the  Punch Pals stamp set.  It is stamped on Almost Amethyst, cut with the word window punch, and elevated with dimensionals.  The main image is also from Punch Pals and is stamped on watercolor paper with brown stazon, or brown craft ink.  Once dried, I colored him in with an aquabrush and used chocolate chip, tangerine tango, going gray, basic black, kiwi kiss, and riding hood red.  I cut him out and again, used dimensionals to pop him up off the paper, after I tied a small piece of mellow moss gingham ribbon around the entire card.  Isn’t he adorable?

The second card is from the same page of the catty, 37C.  It’s textured cardstock base is in Almost Amethyst, and I’ll admit, I would never have used this color combination myself.  Now that I’ve made this card, it’s so great to see the Color Coach color wheel in action and with great results.  The color wheel turned to Almost Amethyst as the main color, shows Always Artichoke and Rose Red as coordinating colors….. and if you turn the wheel to use Chocolate Chip as the main color, it shows that Rose Red and Almost Amethyst are coordinating colors. So this card used all four colors together effortlessly and even added a fifth, mellow moss. 

Ok, so I stamped the main image from Cheers to You, in white craft ink on the chocolate chip cardstock.  I covered with white embossing powder and heat embossed the image.  I just love watching embossing POP and come alive!  Anyway, I used the 1/16" circle punch to punch over all the "ornaments" in the image and placed brads from the rich regals collection, using always artichoke and rose red.  I adhered the mellow moss (i think it was 3.5 x 3") to base, then tied a piece of 1/4" rose red grosgrain ribbon around a piece of always artichoke cardstock, 1" x 4" but tore the left edge towards me first.  Then I adhered that to the mellow moss, and then popped the tree image off the paper with dimensionals.  I stamped only the words Merry Christmas from the sentiment stamp in the same Cheers to You stamp set and cut out and adhered with dimensionals.

I guess it may seem a little early to be thinking of Christmas when Halloween isn’t even until the end of the month, but not only have I seen the preparations already in Joanne’s and Michael’s, but even some websites/blogs I’ve visited have a counter on how many days before Christmas we have to go.  It’s like 115 I think. 

Anyway, thanks for stopping by today, and if you’d like to learn how to make either of these cards for yourselves or to give away, please contact me and we can set it up.  Maybe I’ll add them to an upcoming stamp-a-stack.  

Enjoy!