Saturday, December 3, 2011

Some Christmas Cards

First let me just apologize for the sorrier-than-usual photos. We went to a Christmas party and by the time I got to photograph these it was dark. It rained all day today anyway, and tomorrow I have to go to work. My DH is going to take these to this year's card lady at church tomorrow morning, so tonight was the only time I could take pix.

This first card I cased--you can see the original HERE. I used last year's SU Christmas DP. The stamp set is SU's Holy Triptych. I stamed in in Soft Suede and used a blender pen and Champagne Shimmer paint to color the bottles. I sponged the edges of the main panel and the DP with the shimmer paint also. I stamped a scripture from ODBD inside. Card base on the first two cards is Gina K Heavy Base Weight Cream.

On the second card I decided to let the DP do the work for me LOL! It's really hard for me to cover up beautiful paper. The label is from Spellbinders, the sentiment is ODBD, stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink. I sponged the raised areas on the tag ends with CC ink also.

For the last card I embossed an angel from Holy Triptych in silver on vellum CS. Die is from Spellbinders. I embossed the Marina Mist layer with the Textile CB folder. Card base is PTI white.

I made two of each of these designs for her--I sure hope she likes them. Thanks for looking!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Christmas Cards for Girl Scouts

Every year the Girl Scouts do a Festival of Giving. Each service unit is assigned a charity to donate gifts to. This year ours was Mirror, Inc, an addiction rehab outfit. The usual things were on the list, toiletries mostly, but we decided to make Christmas cards as well, so the inpatients can send someone a Christmas card if they want to. I designed these 4 cards to be fairly simple and easy to mail, hence the abundance of baker's twine (from Divine Twine), which I've always resisted buying before. All the CS is SU, as is the DP (retired years ago, it was called Dashing. I loved it so much I bought two packs and hoarded it. Finally I used it!) All the components were pre-cut.

The first card uses PTI's Stocking Prints set. I die cut enough stockings for 12 cards (that's 36 times through the big shot, if anyone wants to know, plus a few extras). I also embossed the pieces so I wouldn't have to lug my big shot along. Of course the girls had never worked with clear stamps before so that was a challenge.

This next card I thought would be fun for them, since it uses Holiday Sampler, a long-retired stamp set that has LOTS of cute little stamps and lets you do some 2-step stamping. I figured they would get a kick out of choosing their own images and they did. There were lots of interesting variations on my design!

This card very nearly turned into a fiasco as I had them use Tombow Mono Multi, a liquid glue. I only had 3 tape runner-type Mono's, and they went to the other three tables. Plus I found it easy to glue the strings down with just a drop of glue. 9-11 year old girls don't get the concept of "less is more" when it comes to glue! The set is Delightful Decorations, and is still in the SU catty (I know, what a surprise!).

This last card uses City of David, an oldie but a goodie. One of the other leaders had been to an estate sale where she picked up a whole box of rice paper, which she gave to me. So I decided to use it on this card. Card base is PTI's white as it is very sturdy. Blue layer is Ballet Blue and the images are stamped with Night of Navy. I decided not to mess with eyelets on the girls' cards, so we just punched holes and tied the silver cord through. These turned out the best of the four designs for the most part.

Well, I hope these cards bring some holiday joy to the inpatients at Mirror Inc. Thanks for looking!