A Bright & Merry Christmas Card

I know Thanksgiving isn’t here yet — but who else is in a merry mood? While some of you are already putting up the tree and lights and others are saying bah humbug, I love working on my Christmas cards before the holiday season begins, and now is the time!

I knew what I wanted to make — a snowflake Christmas card using white glitter paper and a couple of nontraditional colors — right on trend for the 2024 Christmas season — that is from cutcardstock.com.

Silk Glitter Opulent Opal 12x12 Card Stock, which has glitter on one side and white on the backside.

DCS Discount 8.5x11 Card Stock: Amaranth Pink, which has a matte finish.

https://www.cutcardstock.com/.../amaranth-pink-discount...

DCS Discount Card Stock: Plum Purple 8.5x11 Discount Card Stock, which has a canvas texture on one side.

I started with a few great dies that I bought from Stampin’ Up! years ago. They are a snowflake border and a lace border — very intricate die cuts that take a lot of patience — and a thick shim in the Big Shot die cut machine. At first, I was poking out the cut holes with my circuit tool, but then I remembered I had a piercing mat to help. The piercing mat “heals” after puncturing it.

For the sentiment, I had two “merry” die cuts — and tried them both out to see which one cut better. You can see which one is the winner. I also used the negative space on the cardstock, which would be covered by the purple and glitter-white layers. I love saving card stock that way.

I cut the sheets of paper to an A2 size, 4.25x5.50, and layered the card stock, putting dimensional adhesive dots between the glitter paper with the snowflakes and the purple paper with the lace trim. I did not glue down the snowflakes because I wanted to keep them raised like the base.

I am very happy with the way this card came out, and I love a nontraditional color take on a holiday card. Let me know if you used similar colors on your holiday projects!

Reindeer Food!

Have you heard of Reindeer Food for the night before Christmas?

Children spread out some glitter and oatmeal (preferably on snow) to light the way for Santa’s reindeer on Christmas Eve. It’s a fun tradition for some.

I sell my crafts at craft shows, and reindeer food is always a hit. I haven’t made them in a few years, but while going through my craft fair stash found a dozen glass test tubes, which are perfect for this project. 

The project “ingredients” are:

• glass tubes (you can use plastic) 
• a Cricut for the reindeer 
• a die-cutting machine for the tag
• hole punch
• card stock for the tag and reindeer 
• oatmeal
• chunky red  glitter
• twine
• a white gel ink pen
• embellishments (snowflakes and google eyes)
• 3D adhesive dots
• embossing folder (I used a snowflake pattern)
• twine

First, I gathered my materials. The cardstock that I chose was:

DCS Red Glitter Heavyweight 12x12 Discount Card Stock, which has glitter on one side and white on the back side

DCS Discount Card Stock: Red Pepper Card Stock, which is a matte texture.

DCS Discount Card Stock: Vanilla Bean Brown Discount Card Stock, which has a Canvas textured on one side.

You can do the following steps in any order, but I wanted to work on my tags first. I began with the reindeer die-cut, which I cut on my Cricut machine. I used the Vanilla Bean Brown for the reindeer base and antlers. I punched holes in the red glitter papers for Rudolf’s nose. I thought that was a fun touch. I added google eyes and then used my white gel pen to highlight certain areas of the deer.

Next was the tags — I put red pepper card stock through my Big Shot die-cut machine and then embossed the tags with a snowflake pattern. I adhered the reindeer with 3D glue dots to the tag and added a glitter snowflake in the corner of the tag, next to the reindeer. 

I took out the test tubes and randomly (I don’t measure anything) mixed chunky glitter with oatmeal and poured it into the tubes with my designated glitter funnel. 

I tied the tag with twine on the caps — and the project is ready for the craft shows! Wish me luck!

A Coffee Date!

Are you a pumpkin spice kind of girl (or guy!)? It’s the season! I’m seeing a good friend of mine today for coffee — and our “date” inspired my card. 

I dug through my stash looking for anything coffee-themed and pulled out the stamps and metal die cuts. I began with an intricate die cut of a coffee cup, an old-fashioned percolator — just like my mother-in-law’s— and beautiful swirls of steam.

 

It’s a very difficult die where on the first try it didn’t cut through on my old manual Big Shot die cut machine. But I learned in a Facebook card-making group that with metal dies that just don’t cut all the way, feed the die-cut machine with bubble wrap as a shim. And it worked!

You can see how intricate the die is.

I used Stardream Metallic Saturn 126 lb 8.5 x 11 Card Stock. It’s a sparkly bronze metallic that really catches the light and shines. 

I popped out the tiny pieces of the die using a Cricut tool. 

Then gluing it down was easy if you used a fine-tip glue applicator (I used Art Glitter Glue) and used thin lines or dots.

I feed my coffee obsession with a lot of coffee stamp sets, so after rummaging through them, I found an unused Clearly Whimsy Stamps’ “Coffee Break Additions” from the Clearly Whimsy Stamps Collection. It says “hope you perk up soon,” and think that is a perfect get well soon card sentiment. 

I cut the sentiment with another metal die that I had in my collection — yes I have a collection of them too! I used double-sided tape on the reverse side and adhered to three pieces of metallic bronze ribbon, which to my surprise matched the Bronze color card stock perfectly. I added 3D adhesive dots to the back of the die-cut and placed it on my card.

I then glued the die-cut image to DCS Shimmery Textured Wedding Cake 8.5x11 inch White Card Stock, my favorite paper for its shimmer, and cut it down to 4.25x5.50 inches. 

And my card is finished, ready for my friend today, who needs a little lifting up. Hope that you enjoyed this project — and I’d love to see any coffee-themed projects that you are inspired to make.

Masculine Birthday Cards

If you are like me, you may find masculine cards challenging to make. But the best way to begin is by choosing a color scheme based on patterned papers, and I went with brown, green and cream. 

I used DCS Discount Card Stock: Vanilla Bean Brown Card Stock and different sheets of Basic Grey, which is a limited edition designer paper from years back. It’s called Sweet Threads, a light colored fabric-like print with one bold green and brown design, which I used on every   card.  On one of the cards, I used green laser cut mat that I had on hand.

To give the card some depth I used two different embossing folders: a woodgrain Sizzix and sort of framed border from Sizzix’s Tim Holtz Alterations. I ran the brown card stock through the Big Shot. Right now there are a lot of manual die cutting machines on the market, and favorites become controversial. Some people are die cut traditional while others embrace the new machines. They are wider, some automated, and others emboss easily. I still have my ten-year-old (or more!) black Big Shot, and I find with a few shims, I can do most of what the new machines do. I am waiting for the machine to break, and then I have tough decision on which brand and make to use.

I love to use up a stack of patterned papers and this one was no different. I selected five different patterns from the paper kit and layered them on the card front. I found that the white edges detracted from the card, so I did some inking. Typically I use ink daubers, but I had purchased new sponges that have fine bristles and inked the edges in brown ink.

One of the the sentiments is from older Stampin’ Up! stamp sets. Sometimes I pull stamps from different stamp cases (and makers) and organize them by category — and I pulled my birthday sentiment case. The Stampin’ Up! cases are slim plastic cases with spines and cover reflecting the stamps. I had bought a few blank cases and used my label maker for the spine.  It sure beats looking through my whole collection of stamps.

On all the cards, I used a variety of embellishments from rhinestones to sequins. Thank you for stopping by the blog today! 

Dahlia Paper Flower on Color Block Card Base

Hi, this is Laura, and I have made a card that goes beyond what my “style” is — it truly is one of a kind and out of my comfort zone — for the cutcardstock.com design team challenge this month. I chose to do the color block challenge, and I decided that I would begin with making a  color block woven card base with a paper flower that would be in the center of the card and its focal point. 

I started on the card mat first, which looks like a checkers mat. I cut two 4 x 5.25 pieces of paper in different colors. I choose some “matching” colors to my patterned paper, which is part of a discontinued Basic Grey line. It’s important to use double-sided patterned paper for the flower although you could use single-sided paper where one layer would be white. This won’t work for all papers though as white can clash with some prints. 

Making the checkered paper mats was easy — you cut the papers in one inch wide strips — one sheet on the vertical and one on the horizontal. Then you weave them through each other using repositional tape on the ends to keep the layers down. 

I made made a few samples to see which set of card base colors looked best on the busy patterned paper that I would use  for the coordinating paper flower. 

I wove the card stock colors together — and you can see that I have used:

DCS Shimmery Textured Wedding Cake 8.5x11 inch White Card Stock

Stardream Metallic Saturn 126lb 8.5 x 11 Card Stock

DCS Discount Card Stock: Pearlized Textured Jet Stream Blue

Basis PINK 80lb Cardstock

DCS Discount Card Stock: Black Card Stock

It turns out that although my patterned paper has all of the above colors, the patterned paper that I planned to use for the card looked best on the black and white card base.

For the paper flower, I decided to so a paper Dahlia flower. Years ago, I had made these Dahlia flowers, but I needed a how-to refresher. So I hit Youtube and found Connie Stewart of Simply Simple Stamping, and she shows how  to make a paper Dahlia flower the easy way. You should check her out if you are interested in a detailed visual how-to. 

When you have finished folding the petals, you line up the eight petals (I used more than eight) and adhere them in a circle on one of the cut circles not used. You can use repositional or permanent tape or liquid glue on the circle. I use repositional tape to make sure that I could maneuver the petals better and then used Art Glitter wet adhesive when I was happy with the outcome. 

Then top flower with a rhinestone or other round embellishment. I’m a perfectionist — and that makes paper folding challenging for me, but I think the flower came out nice and it looks dramatic against the color block card base. I matted the card base onto some extra patterned paper for a nice trim.

I hope that you enjoyed this project and will try making paper Dahlias too. If you have any questions, I’d love to help — and be sure to share your paper flowers here. I’d love to see your color combinations!

     

Wine Bottle Wrapper

 

Here's my new Cutcardstock.com August Design Team project. I chose an Anniversary theme project and decided to do Dreaming Tree’s Anniversary Wine Bottle Wrapper.

The prep work — cutting cardstock on my Cricut — took some time, but putting together the entire project took 40 minutes. It was easy to do while following Dreaming Tree’s how-to video, which was at a great pace. 

I chose Silk Glitter Card Stock in Black Prince for the wine bottle wrapper because I love how it elevates the bottle with some bling. 

I coordinated the colors using Stardream Metallic Bronze Card Stock, DCS Shimmery Textured Wedding Cake 8.5x11 inch White Card Stock in Wedding Cake, DCS Discount Card Stock: Textured Japanese Maple Red Card Stock, Lessebo Colors in Hunter Green, and Bright Foil Cardstock in Gold.

I think they create a nice contrast between the white and the other colors that blended.

The bottle is topped off with a bow and ribbon tails. There is an option to customize or personalize the ribbon, but I prefer to keep it blank so I can gift the bottle for any occasion that may come up. 

My favorite part of the bottle wrapper is the flower.

I coiled the gold flower stamen and popped a rhinestone on a 3d glue dot — and I love how that bling raises it a level. 

I hope you enjoyed this project — and if you try it, let me know!