No, it’s not Christmas yet, don’t worry, but I found a couple of year long Christmas card challenges and decided to make a card for them.
There’s Sweet Stampin’ Christmas who want a cute Christmas card and also Holly Jolly who want a clean and simple Christmas card. This one, where I envision Santa Claus looking in his closet for something to wear seems to fit both challenges.
I started by using watercolour paper and making the hanging pole using a ruler and a basic black stampin’ write marker and then stamped the santa image in stazon black. I then used the memento black to colour in the boots using my aquapainter. The suits were watercoloured again using my aquapainter and this time, real red. The sentiment is from the set Good Greetings and stamped in real red also. I then glued the watercolour paper to a base of real red. I’m pleased with this one, it makes me smile. And that’s always a good thing!
A Christmas card in March. No, I haven’t completely lost it, nor have I become unbelievably (to my friends and family) well prepared. I’m the person who tends to be just finishing the packing when it’s time to leave for the airport. The explanation is that I decided to enter this week’s Merry Monday Christmas challenge which was to create a red and green Christmas card.
This little chap actually normally has a banner above him, but I masked that and stamped him in memento black on whisper white. I then used the eraser on the end of a pencil to add the juggling balls in garden green – approximately where the banner used to be. Then I got out my cherry cobbler blendabilities and coloured him in. I debated whether to add a sentiment and keep the card horizontal but in the end, decided to go with a vertical card. So after cropping the image, I added a skinny mat in black and then glued it to a base of garden green.
Since I had already mounted my sentiment – and curved the “very merry” to mimic the juggling balls – I decided to stamp it on the inside of the card:
The sentiment is from the Endless Wishes stamp set and is stamped in garden green. The envelope is lined with the backgrounds DSP in garden green.
This week’s Pal’s Paper Arts challenge has a gorgeous combination of colours although I don’t think that I’d have put them together. I am very glad that the pals did though – the three warm colours are wonderful together.
I decided to use some of the Stampin’ Up! Get Your Santa On set that has so far been unused – it’s too easy to keep using the same stamps. In fact, I overachieved and used two of them!
I started by stamping the joy in cherry cobbler on a scrap of very vanilla and then started stamping the presents being careful not to do alternating colours since that is a little too predictable. Even though I’m a mathematician and I adore symmetry, it would appear that the eye isn’t so thrilled with it on cards – I have to fight myself on that sometimes! I cropped the top of the scrap so that the JOY garland appears to be fixed to the top of it and then cut out a piece of baked brown sugar 1/4″ bigger in both dimensions. The photograph gives the impression that the baked brown sugar piece is just slightly above middle, but it’s actually quite a lot above that (the photo shows the back of the card a little giving that impression I think). I liked the little presents so much that I repeated them inside the card too. The envelope was finished off by lining with the framelit envelope liners and using the backgrounds DSP in cherry cobbler.
I’ve really been enjoying the Stampin’ Up! Get your santa on stamp set. I appeared to have a bit of a series going with this stamp set so I decided to continue that with one of the stamps that I haven’t used yet.
I stamped the chimney stamp in my favourite memento black ink – you have to use this if you’re going to colour with the blendability markers. I coloured santa’s trousers in the dark and medium cherry cobbler blendabilities and used just the medium old olive for the greenery. I picked the medium daffodil delight for the candles’ flames and used the light cherry cobbler for the candlesticks.
I find it surprisingly relaxing colouring with the blendabilities, I have no idea why. I was at a class recently where we were using the rich razzleberry blendabilities on two projects, so there was a lot of colouring. The class was far more quiet than usual, there is usually a fair bit of banter, but on that night we were all soothed by the act of colouring. Apparently it only works on children for a short time. Shame.
I mounted the whisper white card stock onto a piece of basic black cut just a quarter inch larger than the whisper white. This in turn was adhered to a cherry cobbler base. The envelope was lined with the backgrounds DSP in cherry cobbler.
I use a 3 inch by 6 piece of DSP to create the liner, rather than lining the envelope all the way to the bottom. This means that you can get 8 liners out of a sheet of the DSP. So when I need a liner, I cut the sheet into 8 and cut 8 liners; recently I’ve been cutting 2 at a time since I figured that the DSP is so much thinner than the card stock. I then score them using the stampin’ trimmer and stack my ready cut liners in families. I think that I need to get a little index card box to store them in to keep them neat.
Along with the hersheys kisses trees and the superhero curvy keepsake boxes, I made some boxes to hold eight nuggets to take to the craft fair. I found the directions on Susan Itell’s site. It’s surprising how quickly they come together – I easily made 10 boxes and 12 trees on Saturday afternoon.
I also made some in green
and here’s the inside
I don’t have the top note die that Susan used so I used the second largest label framelit and that fit the box perfectly. Pictured above is my first box where I did cut out the one inch square as per Susan’s directions but later on I left that square intact. It made the box stronger although it did mean that it wasn’t as good at sitting open for display purposes.
Staples only had the Avery labels #8460 in large quantities but I noticed that the labels were 1″ by 2 5/8″ and that there were a bunch of others the same size. So I ended up with label #5460 instead (I think it’s just a matter of them being laserjet labels). I stamped the smallest snowflake from Endless Wishes in pool party and then the joy from the same stamp set in real red.
I made five different tops. Using the Mingle all the Way stamp set I stamped the Holiday Happy sentiment in both garden green and real red on whisper white card and then cut it out using the third largest framelit. If I’d have had the top note die, I’d have used that but the labels framelits turned out to be easier since there’s no snipping with scissors – just cut out using a smaller die. The Mingle all the Way was stamped in encore silver ink directly on the box top and surrounded with the smallest snowflake from Endless Wishes. I’m now thinking that the top would look even better if I’d embossed it in silver. Next time I’ll do that.
I also used the santa from Get Your Santa On and coloured him in the medium cherry cobbler which seemed to be the closest in shade to the real red. For my final box top I used the scene and snowman from White Christmas colouring in using the pumpkin pie Stampin’ Write marker and the real red.
I was really pleased with how these came out and they were very enjoyable, relaxing and satisfying to make.
