Linda's Christmas Tree Challenge

The other day my friend Linda set a challenge to make a Christmas card with a tree on it. You'll find the challenge and Linda's gorgeous Christmas card with a tree here on her blog.

To start I embossed a panel of kraft card and after adhering it to the card base added baker's twine borders - just love using red and white baker's twine on Christmas cards! I wanted to use Lawn Fawn's super cute Trim the Tree set so after a little stamping, colouring and cutting had a decorated tree to add to the card. I've added stickles to the star and Glossy Accents to the lights but, unfortunately, with the overcast conditions here didn't manage to pick up the sparkle and shine in my photo.

Stamp set - Trim the Tree (Lawn Fawn)
Embossing Folder - Snowflakes (Cuttlebug)

While I had my supplies out I also made a matching gift tag.

Stamp set - Trim the Tree (Lawn Fawn)

I'm happy to have added two cards and tags to my stash for Christmas and since Linda and I are going to set each other Christmas card challenges each week in July and August I should have a nice little pile of cards and tags by September.

Christmas Hogs & Kisses

I recently got Simon Says Stamp's Birthday Farm Animals set and since I love the images and am still in full Christmas card making mode thought I'd use one of the funny farm animals on a Christmas card.

Stamps - Birthday Farm Animals (Simon Says Stamp), Trim the Tree & Sweet Christmas (Lawn Fawn) and Happy Holidays & Designer Snowflakes (Hero Arts)

To start with I clear embossed snowflakes on kraft card, added some white card at the bottom and cut this background out using one of the dies from Simon Says Stamp's Bundle of Stitched Shapes set. Then I had some fun with the little hog. After cutting him out and colouring him with Promarkers, I changed his party hat into a Santa hat and gave him a present and candy cane to hold from Lawn Fawn's Trim the Tree set. Then I die cut a speech bubble from Clearly Besotted's You Said It die set and used a mix of sentiments from Simon Says Stamp (Birthday Farm Animals) and Lawn Fawn (Sweet Christmas). To finish I added a tiny pom pom to the Santa hat and frosted lace stickles to the brim of the hat and on the ground. It's really foggy here today so unfortunately I didn't manage to capture any of the subtle shimmer in my photo.

I'm submitting this card into a few Simon Says Challenges - the Flickr Challenge #6 (die cutting), the Anything Goes Challenge and the Work it Wednesday Challenge (anything goes). I'm also submitting the card into The Die Cut Diva's Any Holiday Challenge.

Snowflake Christmas Ornament

Every year I seem to have a mad dash in the lead up to Christmas as I try to make a lot of Christmas cards to send to family and friends. So shortly after last Christmas when I was talking to my friend Linda we thought it would be a great idea to make two Christmas cards each month throughout the year to save the flurry of cardmaking before Christmas. Well Linda is all up to date (and maybe even a little ahead) in her cardmaking, but let's just say I'm not!

So I decided to pull out some supplies again this morning to make another Christmas card.



Dies (Simon Says Stamp) - Eliza Snowflake & Kate Snowflake
Stamp (Lawn Fawn) - Trim the Tree

Over at the Simon Says Stamp group on Flickr Barb has a fun challenge going on which is watercolouring. So I thought I'd make a watercolour background for a snowflake Christmas ornament. I used three watercolour paints (two blue & one white) to make the background. I think there are layers and layers of paint on the panel at this stage as I'd be just about happy with it when I'd add something and mess it up! Anyway when I had an okay background I decided to call a halt and just added a few more splashes of paint.

Next it was time to make the ornament. When Simon Says Stamp released a whole range of pretty snowflake dies last year I fell completely in love with them. For this card I die cut two different snowflakes and applied star dust stickles to them.



After the snowflakes had dried, I layered them together using foam pads and added some string to suspend the ornament from the panel. The sentiment was embossed in silver and to finish off the card I added a sprinkling of gems.

I'm so happy to have my quota of Christmas cards made for this month, now I just have to catch up on the rest of the cards I was supposed to make throughout the year!