Sunday, August 26, 2012

Sizzix Christmas Cards


 Hello!  Today I have my August Christmas Cards to show you.  I am really pleased with the way these cards turned out.  As most of you already know, I play the Splitcoaststampers Christmas Card Challenge where we make Christmas Cards all year long so were not scrambling to make cards during the busy Holiday Season.  I have committed to make four Christmas Cards a month, so that I'll have about fifty cards at the end of the year.  Making Christmas Cards all year long is a very difficult resolution to keep.  As each month begins to come to an end, I usually end up panicking and scrambling for ideas to make some quick and easy cards. This month was no exception, and it was even more difficult because I had a out of town wedding to attend, I had to get my son off to college this weekend, my full time job was more stressful than usual this week, plus I had to decorate my home and church for Fall, not to even mention my fall gardening chores. Yikes!  Talk about busy!  So I was looking for some really quick and easy ideas for making fast Christmas Cards on Pinterest and saw a simple card which had a round doily die cut on the corner of Kraft paper with a simple black outline stamp on it.  I thought, 'hey, maybe I could do that with my snowflake die!'.   Well, as I searched through my ancient Sizzix dies (these things really are antiques by now!) I found four Christmas themed dies:  a Gingerbread Man, a Christmas Tree, a Snowflake,  and a Snowman.  Perfect.  I used the same layout as I saw on Pinterest, but I added designer paper to the background, ribbon, embellies, and a sentiment.  I'm not even going to give you the link, because my cards look NOTHING like the original...I used the original simply as a starting point for a whole other concept.

Here is the Gingerbread Man Card.  I popped him up on dimensionals.  The background paper is DCWV 'The Christmas Matstack'.  I echoed the snowflakes in the designer paper with felt snowflakes purchased from JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts attached to my Stampin Up! retired Riding Hood Red ribbon.  All the tags in all the cards were made with a Martha Stewart punch.  The candy cane is a button.  I used a white gel pen for the frosting on the cookie.


My next card uses the Snowman Die.  The paper is Cosmo Cricket 'Dear Mr. Claus'.  The sentiment is from the pad too.  I just cut it out and glued it to his 'hand'.  Ribbon and button are from JoAnn's Fabrics and Crafts.
My next card uses the Snowflake die.  I covered it with glitter and attached it to a piece of snowflake designer paper from DCWV 'Peppermint Forest'.  I used white organza and silver ribbon for embellishment.

 And finally, my favorite card used the Christmas Tree Die.  I attached jingle bells to the plaid ribbon.  The paper is also from the same Cosmo Cricket pad in the Snowman card above.
These cards were so quick and easy because there was no stamping other than the sentiment and no coloring.  All but the snowman card used only one sheet of designer paper, keeping the layering minimal, yet, still providing so much visual interest and texture.

Have a great day! Amy

4 comments:

  1. These are great looking cards, Amy. I love the focal points placed in the corner like that!

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  2. Well aren't these just cutest and lovely Christmas cards, great fast way to make them, especially when you need to do 4 a month. Neat!

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  3. Hello !
    oh I always say I'll do my Christmas cards in advance but I can not. I would like to take this good resolution lol !
    Your cards are wonderful, love all of them, your ribbons are very nice !
    xxx

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  4. These are gorgeous cards, Amy! I love them all.

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