Simply Celebrate

Thanks for visiting for the Card a Day Blog!

Last week I was so busy, I felt I was running around with my head cut off. Kind of scary when you consider that it isn’t even December (ok… I’m out by a day LOL) It reminded me of how hectic the holiday season can be – and not necessarily how I want to enjoy it.  I wanted to make a card that would remind me that sometimes simple is best.

The cardstock I used for the card is a soft grey, almost silvery color, that I embossed with the Cuttlebug “Script” embossing folder.

I had some softly glittering cardstock, that I made an impression “sentiment” for the card front. The “Merry Christmas” from the Sizzix embossing folder “Christmas Set”.

I cut out an offset solid green piece to frame the sentiment, and anchored it to the card front with a strip of green reverse embossed with the Cuttlebug embossing borders.

I decorated below the sentiment with a few sprays of foliage I punched out with holly leaves and pine boughs. You can see that I highlighted the center leaves with felt pens and glitter pens, adding “berries” with a dimensional pen. And here is my tip! If you are short of a colored cardstock that you just need a bit of for punching out leaves and such for cards etc…. recycle those paint chips you may have picked up for choosing paint at the store! It’s a great way to get a lot of different colored greens for foliage or flowered punches!

Remember to visit the Card a Day Blog  tomorrow to see more inspiration from Patricia Logan, and a new theme - Christmas and Children!

ENTER THE CHALLENGE TODAY!

Nativity Ornament

As promised in my previous post, here is what I’ve made with parts of the embellishment I used on my most recent post at the Card a Day Blog! (The picture below is on a dark background to show off the ornament… it is not attached to it) Check out the blog candy at the end of this post!

Here are what the screens looked like on my Silhouette Studio before I cut, or printed and cut them out, notice the nativity centers are reversed – you’ll see why later:

The assembled elements:

I sprayed the doily with pearl spray… the next time I will make sure to use a gold spray to really highlight the doily (see my fix below)

Next, I cut out a small piece of mylar gift wrap for the sky.  I used my Xyron machine to make a sticker out of one of the nativity inside pieces.

Then I attached the nativity piece, and centered the mylar film on the other side of the doily.

I used a stick glue to adhere the other nativity piece on top and overlapping the mylar. I was careful to line the both sides of the nativity scene up, by holding the doily up the the light as I placed the last nativity piece onto the card.

I used my latest toy (a Tim Holtz alcohol ink applicator) to gently tint the outside edge of the doily green. It was great as it didn’t detract from the previously applied pearl spray.

My husband asked me what I’m going to do with it…. Well, the verdict is out still, but I think it may end up going into a Christmas letter as a bonus to someone (shhhhh! Its going to be a surprise!)

Now for the good stuff…. My second blog candy! Only good until December 24th, 2011

If you would like the inside nativity piece in a studio format or jpg that you can use with your own cutter (or scissors), simply leave a comment below!

Silent Night

Thanks for visiting my blog! I hope you’ve been enjoying all the great Christmas Cards from the Card a Day Blog! Here’s another card from my silhouette! This week’s theme is Christmas around the world… I mulled quite a bit about what to make, and ended up making a “reason for the season” card, that I hope you  like!
I have a few people on my list who like traditional cards. Whenever I think of Christmas, I think of the nativity, the calm peace you feel on a chilly winter night, and my favorite Christmas carol "Silent Night". I tried to make a card that was traditional, and made me think of those things too. Enjoy!

Card Base... Dark Blue. 5 1/8 inch wide by 11 inches long, folded in half.
Accent on card front... Light aqua blue 3 3/4 inch wide by 5 1/2 inch tall, embossed with Cuttlebug's snowflake folder.
Card front embellishment... sized approximately 4 3/4 inches.Silhouette store traditional doily, embellished with a circular "word art" - Silent Night's chorus. Also an inner nativity silhouette.
Starry background is actually a small piece of Mylar giftwrap. It would also look great if you did iris folding in gold, blue and red-orange papers to make the night sky in the nativity background.
Here’s what the screen looked like on Studio, when I was making the card front:

The bottom edges of the card were rounded with a 1/2 inch round corner punch.
Font used for the "Silent Night" circle phrase - front of card - Annie BTN
Font used for the inside sentiment - LD Stock
The inside phrase was printed on plain paper, and taped to the inside of the card, and trimmed to match the card shape.

If you don’t have a cutter, you can always do a basic print of the nativity and circular word art – hand cut out the area you want to have mylar showing through, and put it on a small paper doily for the same effect.

This project went together so smoothly, that I’m thinking of doing just the front embellishments and making a few paper ornaments out of them. The mylar I used is transparent, so it would look very pretty on my tree!
Make sure to visit the Card a Day Blog tomorrow, when you’ll be treated out to a creation from Cindy Foster!
Also, don’t forget to also join the fun at the challenge page of the Card a Day Blog! You won’t win if you don’t enter! We love being inspired by you too!

Gingerbread Men and Candy Canes ~ November 7th

Thank you so much for visiting from the Card a Day Blog!
This card is dedicated to using my Silhouette Cutter. I hope it inspires you to assemble similar elements using whatever cutter or digital method you choose .
I got most of the elements from the Silhouette Store. I used print and cut candy canes and gingerbread men, also a file called simply “leaf wreath”. 

The title I chose, is a design I purchased from http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/?p=6757

My card base was 6 inches square, and I cut the title and the wreath approximately 5 inches wide. In hind-sight, with cutting the title that small, I would opt to print it onto a card face vs cutting it and gluing it to a card face. You learn something, every card you do!
On the inside, I glued a single gingerbread man in the center of the page, and hand wrote in a white gel pen, the sentiment “Wishing you the joy of the season”. I used a clear soufle pen to highlight the icing and candy of the gingerbread men. You can’t quite see it in the photos, but it really makes the decoration on the cookies look real!
Here is the final product, front and inside.



Thanks again for coming for some card making inspiration.  Make sure to visit the Card a Day Blog for more tomorrow to see what Shirley Ross has in store for you!
Also be sure to check out the current Challenges and join in the fun and have a chance to win a great prize!

Merry Christmas SnowGlobe

One of my favorite ornaments in my home, other than snowmen, are snow globes. What could be better than to combine them both?

My Card base is an A2 size of white cardstock. The textured beige piece of cardstock actually is the backing of what I built the rest of the card front on. The “Merry Christmas” and bottom snowflake border are pieces of the CuttleBug Merry Christmas Folder, that I inked and did a reverse print and embossing with.  I got the idea of the iris fold snowglobe from looking at http://www.iris-folding.com/projectwaterglobe.html. The snowmen in the middle of the iris fold were snipped from a recycled gift tag.

Thanks for coming and seeing my card! Make sure to visit the Card A Day Blog for more inspiration! Make sure you check out another great inspiration there tomorrow to see what Tina Campbell  at http://tinasscrapcorner.blogspot.com/ has posted!

Don't forget the ongoing challenge at the Card A Day Blog! Check out the challenge page!


Until next time!
Shelley