March WMS Christmas Card Challenge Finished

Another 6 cards finished for Christmas.  The Challenge for March was Blue and Brown.  Not much of a challenge as I love this colour combination.
I thought I would try using the gorgeous Paris Nouveau stamp set which complements the Labels 25 from Spellbinders.
I didn't have any suitable background paper so I created this background by embossing with the Swiss Dots embossing folder (from Cuttlebug) and inking the raised ares with brown ink.  I got a bit fed up with this embossing folder only being able to emboss A6 cards so I modified it so I can emboss continuously.  I've cut one of the sides off so that it finishes with the dots and doesn't have a border.  I can now line up the card to continue the embossing - as you can see this card is wider than A6 but you'd have to look very hard to see where the join is.
The brown card was from a Zeeman Card Blanks/Envelopes set and I stamped the label with a light blue pigment ink and embossed with Blue Pearl (from the Heritage Stamp Company).
The greeting (from the Compliments of the Season set), was stamped on the same blue card as the background, cut using a spellbinders circle and partially embossed (top and bottom) with the Swiss Dots as per background.  The left side of the card looked a little empty and thought these Fleur de Lys corner elements from Spellbinders might fit the bill - can't say I'm disappointed.  I didn't have any brown ribbon so I cut strips from one the envelopes in the Zeeman set and used it to set off the label.

More Christmas Cards

Yet another batch of Christmas Cards.  I called this design Upon a Midnight Clearing, and is very similar to what I made last Christmas, with the inclusion of the branches hanging down and creating the impression of being in the forest and looking out onto a clearing.  I also just cut the snow by hand this year instead of using the Abstract Decorative Strip Die - I'm getting braver!
The forest branches and pine cones were from the WMS set Festive Foliage.  I stamped and cut out another layer of branches which I adhered with sticky fixers to give the impression of depth.
The branches were embossed with green pearl embossing powder from the Heritage Stamp Company in Edinburgh.  I've had this for ages as I've not really embossed much for years.  I hope the company is still there because they sold the best embossing powder I have ever used,  and I'm nearly out of the green pearl now.  The pine cones were embossed with clear to avoid losing any detail.
The stars were embossed with Diamond White from Judikins.  The Reindeer was from the Mover and Shaper set from Tim Holtz, which I coated with Versamark and embossed with Copper Embossing Powder.
This design is for the WMS January challenge to incorporate the sky.  Another 6 cards finished and I'm already planning all the things I can do in December since I won't be panicking about Christmas Cards !

Christmas Cards Started

Well I finally did it - got my Christmas cards started early.  It was good to have the the Christmas Card Challenge at Waltzing Mouse Stamps to spur me on - okay I'm a little bit behind (five months) but I intend working very hard in the next few weeks to catch up.
These cards were for the February Challenge - we were given a set of photos from which to draw inspiration.   My design was inspired by the photo of a Sock vase pictured on the right.  I loved the bright vibrant colours teamed with the traditional red and white.  I never would have thought of using these colours without the challenge, but I really did enjoy making these cards.  For a start I got to use some papers which I had in my stash and which I thought I'd never be able to use for cardmaking - all I did was overstamp some sentiments with bright green ink to tie in with the green ornament.  Secondly if you're going to make Christmas cards in Spring these are great colours to use, in fact the purple and green cards and envelopes were part of a set I bought from Zeeman earlier this year for Spring.  Finally I actually made an early start on Christmas cards.
As soon as I saw the photo, my new twiggy tree die from Memory Box sprang to mind.  Initially I tried to cut them from some red glitter card, but this proved too tough a job for the dainty die so instead I cut it from red card, coated it with Versamark, and embossed it with some red glitter embossing powder (something else I've had in my stash for years). The small baubles were stamped in various colours on various card scraps with a small snow flake stamp (from the Vintage Ornaments set from Waltzing Mouse), which was then embossed using a sparkly embossing powder and cut using the smallest of the Spellbinders Snowflakes.  A bit of bling just set them off beautifully.  The Ornament was stamped from the largest of the WMS Vintage Ornaments and cut using one of the Spellbinders Heirloom Ornament 2010 dies.  I just love how these stamps work so well with the Spellbinders dies.  Incidentally, that oval shape in the ornament matches that of the Classic Ovals from Spellbinders.