March Christmas Cards

For those of us who will be seeing a bit of snow yet, I have my March Christmas Cards to cheer you today.  Who am I kidding?  No one wants to think of Christmas in Spring.  We have actually been enjoying an early spring here in Northern Wisconsin, but I do see we have a bit of snow in the forecast early next week.  But we hardy Wisconsinites are not surprised by that.  We're use to Mother Nature teasing us this time of the year.  Regardless of the weather, I make Christmas Cards all year long because I play the Splitcoaststampers Christmas Card Challenge!  I make five cards a month so that I'm not stressed out making sixty cards in a few weeks in November.  I make a long card, 4 x 8 so that I can fit a Christmas Letter and photo card inside.  I also try and keep them simple so that they are easier and more inexpensive to mail, and also quicker to make.

Now although the layout of these cards looks simple, they actually surprised me in how long they took to make.  I spent two afternoons working on these cards, and I don't think it really shows it either.  It was a reminder to me of why I rarely use this set.  I like the images a lot, but I have always found them very difficult to work with.  Here are my five cards. I made one angel, two of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus, and two of the Wise Men.

 I embossed all the tags with gold embossing powder and fussy cut them out.  That took some time as embossing is never easy for me.  The coloring also was quite time consuming.  I embossed all the sentiments too, and added Stickles to the star and halos.

 The images are from retired SU! 'Holy Triptych', and the sentiments are from retired SU! 'Star Studded Season'.

 I used a soft yellow paper for all the backgrounds.  I thought of using a designer paper or a Christmas color, but I felt the yellow was the most complimentary color and made the main image pop the most.  A designer paper would have been too distracting.

 I used glitter pens on the Wise Men's crown and gifts.

 I used a corner punch to cut out the corners of all the yellow panels, then I put little gold gems in the space for extra oomph!

 Big gold brads were used to hold all the sentiments in place.

Clear Stickles were put on the Angel's wings and dress.

Have a great day!  Amy