FAREWELL TO "BRIGHTLY GLEAMING"

One of my favorite holiday bundles from Stampin' Up! this year was Brightly Gleaming.  The designer paper was gorgeous with its foil accents, the stamp set had a perfect mix of images and sentiments, and I LOVED the two coordinating punches!  Knowing that I always run out of time to get my cards made, I thought it would be oh so handy to be able to quickly punch my stamped images--and it was.  All of the stamped holly leaf images had to be hand-cut, but that was quicker than you might think.  And so . . . following are some of the cards that I created with this fun bundle:

I previously shared this FUN shaker card on my blog, but it's worth seeing again, right?

This card was a CASE by Narelle Farrugia.  Isn't it just so pretty?

Last, but not least, is this CASE from the Holiday Catalog.  When I first looked through the catalog, I loved this card so much and knew that I would make a set of them.  I may not have gotten around to making a whole set, but I did make a couple.  I still love this card--its slim size, the colors, the placement of images and sentiments and, of course, the ribbon and rhinestones.

I hope you and yours have had a very Merry Christmas and

that 2020 will be a year filled with many blessings.

BRING ME GRAY AND GLIMMER

Today's Christmas card was one of the leading contenders, and I really thought that I would make  many more of them.  I really liked the simplicity of the design, the stray from obvious and expected holiday colors, embossed texture, and just the right amount of glimmer.  I didn't find the time to make more of these--I didn't even get to keep a sample for myself, which is something that I normally like to do.  

It's just a sweet card, don't you think?

ADORABLE TURNTABLE/RECORD PLAYER CHRISTMAS CARDS

Another of my favorite Christmas cards was this fun record player:

Isn't it just the cutest???  I would love to take credit for using the die-cut pieces from My Favorite Things' Turntable dies to create this fun fold card--complete with a pocket/sleeve to hold a second "vinyl" record, but this project was CASE'd from Stephanie Klauck, whose tutorial can be viewed HERE.

I made several of these cards. They were all made pretty much the same with ever so slight changes to some.  There wasn't a good space for writing a message or signing the card, so I used the space on the back of the spare record (in the sleeve/pocket) for this purpose.

The outside of the card was kept very simple.  You can't tell from the photo, but a Wink of Stella clear glitter brush was used to outline the snowman and the snowy lines on the ground.

FOLDED DOILY TREE & FLANNEL CHRISTMAS CARDS

I finally got my Christmas cards completed and in the mail.  For a while, I started thinking that I'd have to send store-bought cards this year, but I treated myself to a "card day" over the weekend.  Actually, I purchased a box of cards, but they just didn't work for me.  Seeing that the cards were accordion-folded and had just the right amount of glitter and cut-outs is what caught my eye, but I missed the description about the size of the cards when opened.  Can you say "WOW!!!"?

I don't know anyone who would have enough space to display a card that--when open--is 5.5" tall x almost 33" wide!  It's a beautiful card, but . . . why so big???  I could have used two of the cards for festive window valances!  Needless to say, the box of cards got returned to the store.

And then I worked on a fun design that had assorted layers and textures, and I used two pieces of flannel fabric--some with haphazard stitching, some without:

I folded doilies to create the tree shapes and used torn vellum for the tree trunks.  Assorted glimmer paper was used for the punched star and twig embellishments and, of course, I added sequins to some of the cards.

All of the cards featured a dry-embossed layer, which added yet another texture.  These cards were among my favorites this year!

Stay tuned because I will be sharing photos of a couple more cards between now and Christmas.  😊