Simple Christmas cards

I pride myself on making average cards, lol! Seriously, I am not a fast cardmaker by any means, so when I can come up with something very simple, it's a good thing! These cards could not be easier ... though I still managed to take awhile to decide what I wanted to do! With Christmas just days away, this seemed an appropriate design to show.

Last foreign language cards made for sale

I have been selling cards at Houghton College for about two and half years, but with new management and, understandably, with their different ideas, it seems time to move on. I had almost stopped anyway, as I don't really have a lot of time for cardmaking, and when time is limited, making "have to" cards - making sure I have new designs for each category - leaves no time to make just what I want to make. Anyway, while I still have reasons to make the occasional Spanish card, I will no longer have any cause to make foreign language cards. Those that I have left over I will just re-make into English cards, unless I can find some place to sell them online. With the fairly simple designs I have, that may not be possible. So, these two cards, made this summer to sell at the college this winter, are the last in their language I will make.

Christmas Cardinal

I have had this image for years, but never used it before. The spellbinders' circle die was the perfect frame for it!

Winter Snow Scene

>Winter Snow Scene, is one of a series from Eureka, and each image is offered in two sizes. I have a smaller image from this set of the three wise men. I love embossing, and the small circle is just too detailed to handle embossing well. When I received this stamp, I tried embossing with silver just to see if it would work, not necessarily to make a card with, but I liked it enough I decided to go ahead and finish it. I decided it needed a little "warmth," so I embossed the moon in gold.

It's all about grace

I love the sentiment on this text stamp! So original and thought provoking, especially with all the provocations that can come along with the Christmas season! May God give us grace to be gracious!

I had the ornament already finished from last year, but never made it into a card until this year, and then it was in a flying hurry, and there would be some changes I'd have made if I'd taken my time. Ah well, it's out of the house and will hopefully bless someone!

Joy to the World alternate

I wanted this card to have a softer, muted look. Again, simple design.

JOY to the world!

I so not remember where this stamp came from, but I think it is such a creative stamp! If anyone knows the company that made it, I'd like to give credit.

This is an extremely simple card, but I wanted the design to be the focus. I also just really like a lot of empty space on a card.

Dovely Joy

I love this stamp from LimeLight. I've made a number of cards from it, especially enjoying using gold leaf! In fact, I went a little crazy with it a couple of years ago, making a number of panels that slowly turned into cards. This is the last, which I did this summer.

Rejoice some more!

Now this is a switch ... instead of not showing the sparkle, a problem I sometimes have with glitz, this one shows sparkle where there really isn't any! The embossing powder is from a line called "Antiquities," which I believe may now be itself antique! It's very similar to Tim Holtz distress powder, I believe, more of a sandy look than glittery.

I stamped the image too close to the edge of the cardstock, hence the "interesting" cut of the cardstock!

Rejoice!

Hurrah! Time to post the Christmas cards I made this summer! It's so strange to do them then, but I knew with college I didn't dare wait until November!

I love this stamp from Biblical impressions, and it works perfectly with gold leaf. I had a difficult time photographing this card; the light just was not right. The gold leaf mix I used had a bit more of the color of the card in it, for some reason it doesn't come through in the photo. :-(

smARTword challenge

This is the last of the smARTword challenges, so take advantage of this last opportunity for free stamps!

The word for this month is "merry"!

The adorable vintage image is available in two sizes at smARTworks. :-)

Christmas Penguins!

Christmas is such a wonderful time of celebrating Christ's birth, that I make few cards that don't have a specifically Christian meaning or symbol. But this little guy was so cute, and in the dollar pile at a craft store that I impulsively snatched him up. I made them into Spanish and Croatian Christmas cards for the Houghton College store. Why Croatian? Simply because my oldest daughter is familiar enough with the language for me to be confident I had the right translation, lol!

Spanish Christmas

I just realized I did actually make a couple of other Christmas cards this year: foreign language cards. This is a design I created a couple of years ago. I sponged pinks and oranges (latino Christmas cards do not stick to our American/European traditiona reds & greens) on glossy cardstock, then stamped the three kings in black stazon, then computer-printed the scripture on vellum. I had rejected the background panel because I did not want any "lines," but when I looked at it with the vellum overlay, it looked, as you see, very soft, and like light from a star.

More Joy!

And the last of my Christmas cards, I think, the other Dovely Joy image I mounted ... just in time for it to be delivered before Christmas! I used foil flakes on this one ... this image just begged for it!

Joy!

As I worked on "recreating" or fixing cards yesterday, I came across two of these "Dovely Joy" panels, and easily made them into cards. This was my favorite Christmas stamp of last year; I must have made seven or eight panels with it, and each one was a little different. A couple might become cards next year...

This one was made with Antiquities embossing powder; I don't believe they are made any more, but they are very similar to Tim Holtz' distress powders. The background was a silent night stamp applied with distress inks.

Wise Men Still Seek Him

Friends of ours have me make a set of ten Christmas cards each year, and last Christmas they chose this design for this year. A good thing: today was the only day I had to make cards for friends and family, and there's no way I could possibly do that. So, every single card was from my "Christmas box" of cards or parts of cards that were begun and not finished, left over from finished cards, goofed cards (smudged, glued crookedly, etc), etc.

I changed this card slightly from the one I had made last year. I used distress inks, and getting a perfect image with that ink with the wise men image was very challenging, and so for the ten cards I completed, I had nearly twice that many of that particular image that had to be pitched.

The "parchment" map was created by using two or three shades of brown distress inks on old white parchment-like typewriter paper, then rolling Ranger Butterscotch across it for a mellower look.

I had hoped to participate in the smARTworks "word challenge" this month; if I weren't already making a card with smARTworks' stamps, I wouldn't have been able to participate, so that's happy!

Merry Christmas ... to YOU!

I made this card specifically for those of you who visit here. Years ago, when I used to cross-stitch, I would pray for the one for whom I was stitching. Likewise, as I made this card, I prayed for you, knowing that while I might not know who is visiting me, the Lord does!

Blessings to all of you this Christmas, may those of you who have not yet found Jesus as Lord of your life, find Him this year, and may those of you who know Him grow closer than ever before...

With love,
Sarah

Note: I forgot the brads, but when I went to rescan the card, the scanner refused to do it! Bah, humbug! I'll try again tomorrow...

Christmas quilt

I had hoped to make a set of quilt cards for my mother for Christmas, but I have a feeling it is not going to happen. So, I decided I'd at least make a quilt card for her Christmas card. We have company coming tomorrow, and my house is far from ready, so this was a card made in a hurry. I was delighted to find an already stamped text: all I needed to do was attach it to a scrap of cardstock and trim. Oh, happy day! The saying is a bit trite, but oh well, my mom will just be delighted I have made a "quilt." I'm hoping she can't tell that I accidently embossed the snowflake pattern backwards.... :-/

Now, off to pack up our handmade chocolates...

Christmas mailbox

Last year cute little metal mailboxes from Target were really popular for decorating. I made a bunch for the gift shoppe in which I sold items, and they went over really well. There were some left over, so I decided to sell them at the Houghton craft fair. I had just enough time to throw together a Christmas themed mailbox. I was not really creative that night (is there an artist/crafter's term for "writer's block??), so I might redo this for next year...

Mistletoad

I've never sold one of these cards (I made more than one), but it's one of my favorites. The toad on this card is just one of six. It might be my favorite one!

I did another craft fair this evening. I knew it would probably not go really well, as Wellsville has already had a major craft fair this season, and last week was the town's big Christmas event on Main Street. But since I heard about it during the Houghton craft fair I just did, I left everything packed up, so it was no extra work to do it. I did sell a few things, but the current economy is really hitting events like this hard. Glad I'm not dependent on crafts for income, lol!