Easy Christmas Cards

Twelve darling homemade cards with minimal cost and time, it can't get sweeter than that. Well, add some chocolate covered toffee and it can ^_~ I made these in a few hours and it would have been lots quicker if I knew right away what I was doing. One sheet of pattern paper, 2 sheets each of 2 coordinating colors of CS, and one sheet to stamp on. Add in some simple ribbon and colored safety pins and I'm well on my way to some cute and easy Christmas cards!

Supplies: Paper by Basic Grey; Cardstock, Ink, Twill Ribbon, and Safety Pins by CTMH; Holiday Tags 2008 stamp set by Papertrey Ink; Gold Stardust pen by Sakura

I used mostly scraps for my cards on all three of these batches. The basic design is inspired by some of the many make-n-take cards at my LSS, Pebbles. They have no stamping and usually only have a single brad or eyelet as embellishment. While they are cute they are way more simplistic than I like to give out myself. Template ideas were brewing as I put these together and the scallop punch Jenn sent couldn't have come at a more perfect time. I picked simple traditional colors to work with the trial to easily give off that Christmas feel :D While this batch uses more CS I thought to try the next ones without it to cut down on time and cost. The Christmas tree stamp was stamped first in cranberry then punched out with my 2" circle punch. I then stamped it again in olive, cut out the tree and glued it to my circle. Lastly I colored in the star with my gold stardust pen.

The second batch was a bit easier since I had figured out what I was doing. I simply stamped the circle element in cranberry and then my sentiment of choice in olive for the circle. Because you make 3 cards each of four patterns I decided to use 3 different images so that each card is a little different. Plus it was a lot more fun to stamp out only four of each image instead of twelve of one image.

This was the last batch. I did the same thing as the second batch except this time I went over the berries with my gold stardust pen. These are great if you want to do a quick and sweet batch of cards without spending a ton of time or money. Even with the ribbon I used and the safety pins the cost per card is only .50! If I had made them completely flat without embellishment then it would have only cost me .30 a card :D

Because I was so excited about this I made a template. It's not fancy by any means, lol, but it at least gets the job done! There are 5 pages, all jpeg. You can use any stamp that fits inside a 2" circle for this so don't feel like I made this just for these stamps :D This works great with scraps too! I used different colors for my scallop circles to use up some odd scraps.

Pattern Paper Cutting Guide
Cardstock 1 Cutting Guide
Cardstock 2 Cutting Guide
Neutral White Cutting Guide
Card Guide Template

Cards made following the template will look different than these trial cards that I made. I will make a version that follows the template exactly and post that later this week. The ones that I have posted here were to help me develop an easy template and I used different colored scraps while creating them which is why they will look different ^_~ Thanks for stopping by! I hope this helps someone with this Christmas cards! And have a Happy Tuesday :D

Color Challenge #38

You've probably all noticed I've been on a Christmas kick lately, lol. So the colors for this week are inspired by winter. I noticed that I almost never use Ponderosa Pine. With that in mind I started matching up colors and found that Juniper looks gorgeous with this deep green! Some neutrals and instantly a homespun winter feel came to my mind. With all the rage going on with kraft paper lately I thought I'd incorporate CTMH's closest neutrals to that. To play use at least 3 of the colors and leave a comment with a link to your artwork so I can add it here. Have fun with the colors!

Juniper

Ponderosa Pine

Bamboo

Desert Sand

Alanna's Sweet and Simple Anniversary Card
Laurel's Sassy Friends-Don't-Give-Friends Card
Pat's Darling Keep Smiling Card
Jena's Lovely Dance Layout
Sparkle's Sassy MFT Shoe Card
Jenn's Sweet All Decked Out Snowman Card
Emilee's Darling Double Challenge Snowman Card

My Samples:

Supplies: Cardstock, Perfect Day paper, Bamboo brads and hinge, Music of Winter, Friendship Large Alpha, and Sans Small Alpha stamp sets by CTMH

Even though I made this card second this is what I invisioned for the color challenge. A crafty homespun winter card. This was very simple to make and the inspiration for this card comes from the Smile card on page 78 of the CTMH Fall/Winter 2008 Catalog. I haven't used these snowflakes in ages though I just adore them and the large text in the Smile card really inspired me to do an oversized sentiment.

Supplies: Cardstock, Col White Ribbon, Juniper Brads, Gratitude, Cottage Floral, and Star Stuck stamp sets by CTMH

This card I made first. I wanted to try something a little different with my Gratitude stamp set and this definitely is different for me. I made the paper first and fell in love with the design so I changed the position of the panels from the SC201 card sketch so that more of the paper was seen on the card. I mixed my Cottage Floral set with the Gratitude and the petals match perfectly with each other!

Here is the paper I made for the card - Desert Sand, Juniper, and Bamboo stamped on a 4 x 5.25 sheet of Colonial white. I am absolutely terrible at random stamping, lol. I've done the triangle thing, just randomly stamping anywhere, or even trying to mentally place each image visually on the paper before setting the stamp down and it never turns out the way I want. But though I can't random stamp, I think I do okay with stamping out grid-like designs. I used the scallop circle in the star struck set, it made creating the paper so easy as I just had to stagger the circles then stamp the flowers inside! Anyway have fun with the challenge! Thanks for playing!

Thankful for my Blogging Sisters

We got a few wonderful surprises in the mail Friday and Saturday this week. Friday the girls got these fun books from Vicki and with it she sent a card for me too! She makes the most darling Stella cards! I love the fall colors in this one and the happy sentiment. The girls loved the mouse down there by her shoes, lol. The books are ones she wrote about a silly guinea pig and she sent a couple copies to my girls. She even autographed the inside with a little note to each of them! Thanks hun, this was just too sweet! The girls love the pictures of the guinea pig and though it's quite a bit longer than the books they are used to Caitlyn sat through nearly the entire book the first time I read it, then she came back later to have me finish reading the end!

Saturday was another surprising mail day as I got this wonderful box of goodies from Jenn and these darling Tilda images from Sparkle (picture below)! It was so sweet and Paul was just as touched as I was that people I know from online would send such wonderful packages and lovingly made cards! The scroll tree card Jenn made is so pretty, the little dots are there have a pearl finish! And Sparkles card is so cute!! I hadn't seen this CC Designs stamp and Paul thought the monkey was awesome! The box that Jenn sent was just amazing, I'm going to love using the new punches and flowers! And I already have plans for one of the little baking Tilda's for the girls' latest pictures of them baking with me, it's too darling and I've been wanting to find a way to incorporate some image stamps into my scrap pages! Thank you so much Vicki, Jenn, and Sparkle! Your gifts really made our weekend!!

I'm so thankful to have so much support online! Whether it's a thoughtful package, a card, or a simple comment, all your messages add extra happiness in my life. Many times when I'm feeling down or am just having a hard time I can pop online and see that some of you have left me a comment. Even just reading that my artwork is nice is so uplifting. I'm grateful to have such wonderful blogging sisters! Thank you ladies and have a beautiful Sunday!

My Girl

Supplies: Perfect Day PP, Sorbet Ribbon, White Daisy Flowers, Brads, Metal Circle Tags, Safety Pin, and CS by CTMH; Chipboard Bracket by Scenic Route; Big Brad and Thickers Letter Stickers by American Crafts; Metal Bookplate Unknown (RAK)

This layout was made for the IB Sketch #3. I changed up quite a few things but the placements are all there. I added in an extra photo and then put the journaling where the title was to be in the original sketch. I love using coordinated papers since that cuts out all the time spent trying to 'match' things up. This was actually a rather quick layout, it took me just over an hour. More pics of Cait just being Cait :D

Cait ran out of speech therapy sessions this week. I had made a thank you card and let Caitlyn draw inside of it a message for Breanna, so she drew her and Breanna in the card. It was so sweet! Then we put some pictures we had taken earlier of them together and during one of the sessions in the card for her. Caitlyn didn't understand that she might not see Breanna again when we left that day so it was a little bittersweet for me. She gave her a hug but it was the usual happy goodbye for her. I hope I'll be able to do enough to help Caitlyn still progress well with her speech and I really hope we can get her back into therapy soon. It has to be preapproved again and you only get so many sessions, but I'm really hoping they give them to us since Cait has gotten such good momentum since she started her speech therapy. It's hard to believe it's been about 3 months since she started it! Anyway, I hope you are all having a great Saturday!

Bella Challenges Galore!

There are a lot of fun challenges happening at the Bella Forums lately! They've got the Bella's first Favorite stamper challenge going on - to look through Giffysk8s (Vicki's) gallery and case one of her cards, the usual sketch and color challenges, and the Stooby Tuesday challenge to create a card using red, white, and blue for election week. Wow! I didn't have time to do much crafting until Tuesday so I started with the easiest challenge for me, the sketch challenge. But before I go into the cards ScrapyTiff asked how I got the blue CS cut with the bracket style edge in my {heart} Snow layout. I actually bought one of the pre-cut pattern papers from my LSS just to use as a template. I traced the edge of the paper onto the wrong side of my CS (or pattern paper) and then cut it out by hand. I also do this with the scallop papers. I hope that helps! Now on to the bellas :D

I finally played with my wreathabella. I've been wanting to use her but just haven't felt the right inspiration yet. This sketch totally got my creative juices flowing! I have a bunch of her stamped out but they were already cut into squares so I had to restamp her and wait for her to dry before coloring. While I waited I put the card together. I pulled out some Fruitcake paper by Basic Grey and loved the holly paper. I also used my new Holiday Tags stamps by Papertrey ink for the circle tag and sentiment. I flipped the sketch horizontally and then tried to make the sketch fit a little more my style :D. She's got some sparkle on her hat and shoe puffs and on the wreath's bow.

I created this card for the Bella's Favorite Stamper challenge. We were to case one of Vicki's lovely bella cards. As I was looking through her gallery this card really inspired me. I loved the Tiddly Inks image and though I don't have that particular one, I thought to use the same Ella and Looloo line using an image I do have. I've never actually CASEd a card before so I hope I did it right, lol. I kept the same layout design and stamp line, and I also kept the 3 embellie theme she had on the sentiment panel. I added sparkle to her crown, necklace, and around each polkadot though you can't see it in the pic. Vicki always puts sparkly stuff on her cards so I just had to add some sparklies :D The buttons on this card were actually inspired by Vicki's card because Ella and Looloo are playing dressup and buttons popped in my mind! The funniest part about this card (or at least I think it is funny) is that when I was posting this on SCS and linking Vicki's card I realized that her card was also a CASE. So I CASEd a CASE, lol. I hope that's allowed!

This one is for the #3 Stooby Toosday challenge - make a card with red, white, and blue. I completely went away from the patriotic theme and created yet another Christmas card ^_~ She has a lot more sparkle than is showing up on the photo. I was a bit sad earlier this week as I went to go pick up the scallop punch to fit my Holiday Tags stamp set and Robert's was all out of them :( And unfortunately they are the only place here that I've found that sells the Marvy scalloped punches. I thought for sure Michaels would carry them but ours doesn't :P Oh well, I'll just have to wait lol.

I finally made a card for the Bella #44 sketch challenge, lol! I had to make the side circles smaller to fit in a standard card and then thought snowflakes would be so cute there! Her outfit came out more orangy in the picture but in real life it just looks like a darker shade of sorbet. I actually made this card last out of the bunch but since it is Christmas, I'm putting it up here with the Christmasy cards ^_~. More liquid applique and glitter on this card like the card before. I just love the sparkly fur look so I decided to do it to this card as well :D

And this cutie was made for the #53 color challenge. Sparkle picked any shade of blue, any shade of yellow, and light green for an accent as the colors for her last color challenge on the bella forums. I stepped away from my Christmas cards for this one even though my hubby and I tried to brainstorm which shades I could use for a Christmas card, lol. Sometimes it's just nice to take a break and do something different. I've had these BoBunny papers since January and had grown out of liking them until... I turned them over! lol The other sides sported some great monocromatic designs that fit perfectly with the colors for the challenge and opened up new ideas for the papers. So there are my cards for the bella challenges this week, and the last old challenge I had left to catch up on ^_~ Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

{heart} Snow

Supplies : Pattern Paper, Journaling prompt, Bracket, border element, and tag elements by My Minds Eye; CS, love metal circle, buttons, and waxy flax by CTMH; Ribbon, brads, and Thickers letter stickers by American Crafts; pink staples and felt heart unknown (felt heart RAK :D); Snowflake punches by Marvy; Snowfall stamps by Papertrey

Here's another fun snow page, this time with Audrey. It was her first time actually getting to play in the snow. She was so darling!! I used another Pagemaps sketch, this one from July '07. I left off the circle on the right for the journaling so I wouldn't cover up so much of that cute snowman paper. This one was so fun to do and those snowflake punches came in so handy! I punched some of them out of the pattern paper for more interest and color :D I also used my new papertrey stamps for the winter on the tag and the darling saying in the journaling prompt. I've had these fun pink staples forever and rarely use them. They matched this layout perfectly with what I was trying to accomplish! As for the Snowmen on yesterday's layout, they are actually from the one sheet of preprinted cardstock diecuts that come in the paper pack, or some stores just sell the die cut sheet separate. I don't know if I could have cut them out without seriously disarming one or both of them, lol! Tomorrow will be my bella cards for the challenges :D Have a Happy Thursday everyone and enjoy!