Simply "Flat" Christmas Card

Hi all!

I decided to do a "flatter" and simple card this time and put my dimensionals away. This card used simple cuts and a variety of papers. The circle is embellished with marker lines since the brown paper and all of the ornaments had swirls and designs on them.



I inked the edges fairly heavily. I love aging the paper. Some few stitches and the sentiment were done with marker. The strings attached to the ornaments were actually a stamp from Close to My Heart. The stickers were also from Close to My Heart. Instead of fighting with a bow, I simply knotted the ribbon this time. The colours on this ribbon tied all the card colours together wonderfully.



I even kept the inside of this one very simple with a strip of sticker running down the edge! Another one to check off my list!

One more thing to mention before I go. I'd like to thank those people who pop in and visit my blog. I am just a newbie at this blogging thing and I don't always post on a regular basis so I really appreciate it when I hear from you. It makes it so much more worthwhile if I get to share my ideas and hear of some new ones, like the Button Candy that is featured on Sparta Savings blog! This blog is dedicated to finding ways to save money and to create memories by creating handmade gifts. A fantastic idea! So be sure to check it out.

Very Merry Tags card

Good morning, everyone! December is almost here!

This card was a simple one and I used Very Merry Tags to create the tree. I cut it at 3" using both the base and the layer. This is really an easy mini cart to use as the bases are on lines directly below the layers that fit on them. Normally there would be ribbon in the loop at the top as it is designed as a gift tag, but I put a gold rhinestone there to represent the star at the top of the tree.


The papers were all from Close to My Heart. I inked all of the edges, of course. These papers just lend themselves to inking as they are already "faded" colours and have an old feel to them. The ribbon was some I got in a dollar bin at Michael's. I chose to use it as my sentiment and the way I knotted it allowed for both sides to have the same colour scheme. I glued it down so that it had waves and then used a couple of small gold gems on the ends to imitate brads holding it onto the paper.



Of course I had to finish the inside with a strip of coordinating paper which I also inked. I decided to stamp a sentiment on the inside of this card using a Close to My Heart stamp. I didn't have the right colour of red to match the paper so I layered a brownish colour with the bright red I had and that gave it the desired effect.

I am quite pleased with this simple, yet interesting card. I am using this card as my entry for the FCCB Monday challenge today which stipulated using ribbon somewhere on your project. I think using ribbon as the sentiment is a different idea and of course, I have used my Cricut! Thanks for checking it out!

Share the Magic

Here is another card that I fashioned after one I saw in my Close to My Heart Catalogue. All the paper is from the Mistel Toe paper pack and the stamped Santa and the sentiment are from the Share the Magic set.

I love the music paper in this pack. To make the layers a little less bulky, I took a lesson from Diane at Capidia Designs and cut another circle out of the red so that it was just a ring of red under the green paper. I coloured the Santa with my water colour pencils. I need to find a tutorial on how to use these as I certainly am not doing it right! The ink used for the sentiment is a combination of two inks that I had, a green one that I picked up at a dollar store and a creamy brown CatEye stamp. Combining the two gave me the same green tone as the paper. I added gems and some ribbon that I had picked up from the dollar bins at Michael's to add a little sparkle. Some faux stitches finished off the front.

As always, I like to finish the inside of my cards. With this one I mimicked the front ornament shape using the center red circle I had cut previously and an ivory one on top so that I can write on it. I used the green music paper as a base because I love it! I am very happy with these papers and buying them in a pack makes it so simple to be coordinated!

First Christmas Card

My first Christmas card of the season!

I used the Mistle Toe Paper Pack from Close to My Heart. The idea for the card came from their catalogue. I inked all the papers as I felt they had an old school feel to them. I really like the effect and I really like the quality of the papers and the way they coordinate. It makes it so much easier if I don't have to think so hard about the paper! lol

The cute little snowman stamp is also from Close to My Heart. It is from a set called Share the Magic. The candy canes are also a stamp from this collection and I stamped them with red ink. I used water colour crayons to colour the snowman, which I had stamped in black. I have not perfected the water colour technique yet and the snowman looks more like he's just been coloured, but he is still cute.

As you can see, I popped the snowman up with dimensionals. I also popped up the layer that he is on. A couple of gems and some ribbon finish off the front while a few layers of paper complete the inside. The faux stitching was done with a forest green marker that I have had from CM for a long time.

First Christmas Tags!

Yeah, I have officially started Christmas things! We had our first Christmas supper at our house on Sunday so I was forced to put up some Christmas decorations! I also put on the Christmas carols, so now I'm kind of in the mood to start cards.

Today I had to wrap our nieces Christmas gifts so that my hubby could take them as he returns to the Arctic to work. He and his brother manage to be on site for a week overlap this time so presents will be exchanged. So much better than mailing them! I decided to make gift tags for the girls' presents and a card for my brother and sister-in-law. I remembered to take pics of the tags, but totally forgot to take a picture of the card before I sealed the envelope...duh! Oh well, here are the tags. I think they are very cute!

I used a mini cartridge for these tags called Very Merry Tags. They are simple layered cuts. I chose to use some new paper that I bought specifically for doing Christmas cards this year. It's called Gemstones and is from the Recollections papers at Michael's. There are 5 colours in my pack, red, ivory, dark green, navy blue and black and they all have a bit of sparkle on the one side and the dark colours are black on the opposite side. The picture just doesn't do them justice. This paper was really sturdy and yet easy to cut. I used a pressure of 4 and a speed of 3.

The tag cartridge is easy to use as the layer is just above it's corresponding base on the keys. I made the base and the layer and glued them together using my Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive since it has a very fine tip for those thin lines. These pieces were all cut at 3" and I think that is a perfect size for the tags. Lots of room on the back to write.




Once I put them together, I added a little bit of glittery string to them and attached them to the parcels. I hope they like their tags. They are sturdy enough that they could be hung on the tree afterwards!

Hello Thursday posting!

Did everyone see the new Cricut cartridges coming out? They were posted on various blogs, but the one that I always follow is Obsessed With Scrapbooking. Joy always has great ideas and information on all of her sites.

I think my favourite of these new carts is Twinkle Toes. I can visualize many cute layouts for my little dancers! Jolly Holidays also has a lot of cute graphics on it, too. Here is the link to see more about these cartridges. Enjoy!

The Last Thank You!

The Last Thank You Card for Awhile!

Finally! This is the last Thank You card that I have to make for my wedding gifts. It took me forever because I am, by nature, a procrastinator, but they are finally done and all sent away. Well, except for my daughter's which is in a pile of things that I am going to box up all together to mail to her. I just need to finish my Christmas shopping first!

I decided to keep this card very simple. I used a brown card stock that is about the colour of a paper bag. The blue printed paper I used was from one of my packs that I bought at the dollar store. The ribbon is Dots and Dashes (love their ribbons) and I added a little bling with some blue pearls. A simple rubber stamp sentiment finished it off.

As you can see, I used dimensionals on the front and a strip of the printed paper on the inside. I am so excited to have these done because now that means I can get cracking on my Christmas cards. I have some new stamps from Close to My Heart and water colour pencils that I've been dying to try out. Whoot!

New paper and an embossing tryout!

I was in Dollar Giant and picked up some packages of patterned paper. There are 10 sheets to a pack, and they are a fairly good quality paper considering they only cost 1.25! I made 2 more Thank You cards using this paper and card stock which I had gotten at Michael's in a multi-coloured pack. The card stock was 81/2 x 11 so I cut it in half (hamburger style for fellow teachers) and made 2 cards that are A2 size out of the one piece. For these two cards, I chose a chocolate brown as my base card.

Card #1

I chose a beautiful apple green paper for this card. The solid green rectangle was a scrap leftover from making an envelope. The ribbon is from Dots and Dashes and the button is from a package that I picked out of a dollar bin at Michael's. Instead of making a bow, I wrapped a strip around the top to layers (green on white) and tied a second piece to it. It is my fake bow! I did this because I already new that I wanted to add the button. I layered this piece onto a brown piece to hide the ribbon ends. Then I used dimensionals to adhere it to the front of my card which has a layer of green patterned paper. A simple brown stamp on the front was all that was required.

The inside is finished with a strip of the patterned green and a slightly wider strip of the solid green. This gives me a place to write as the brown is too dark. I think it gives the cards a much more polished look.

Card # 2

This card was meant to be folded the same as the other card, but since this was my first day at using my Martha Stewart scoreboard, it didn't turn out that way. When I went to score my fold-line, I made a mistake and scored it at 4" instead of 4 1/4". So I looked at it and decided I didn't want to waste it. This became my challenge card for the day. What I decided to do was to make the front flap of the card shorter (since it already was) than the back. I cut more of it off so that an inch of the inside of the card shows.

The printed paper layers are from my dollar finds and I had some scraps of the same chocolate brown that I used as alternate layers. The narrow brown strip across the middle of the card was the one that I had cut off the front. I used white ink from Close to My Heart to stamp the sentiment and used my clear embossing powder and heat tool (also from Close to My Heart) for the first time! It added a little sheen to the sentiment. I think I want to get a some sparkles or something to add into the powder to give it even more of a glint.

The inside of the card has a strip that I cut off of a 12 x 12 piece of paper. I thought it looked like a border and would be perfect for the visible part of the card. I then added a simple white rectangle for writing on.

I hope you like these cards. I am very happy with them and I have only to make one more thank you and then I can start my Christmas cards! Yippee!!!

No cricut cuts on these babies!

Here are 2 more Thank You cards that I made, using strips of card stock that I had laying around and paper from my little 6 x 6 Dollar Store pads of paper. My cutting mat has lost its stickiness so I decided to just do a couple of cards using my paper cutter and one of my stencils from CM. I am very happy with how they turned out.

Card #1

At first I had the diamonds all centered within each other and then by accident when I set them aside, they slide into this pattern. I liked it and kept it! A couple of small pearls add a little glamour without too much bling. This card has a more masculine feel to it, I think.


Card #2

I love the burgandy and pink combination on the front of this card. The other colour is a dark gray which is the colour of the faint lines in the patterned paper. The inside was too dark to write on, so I added a piece of light gray card stock and made a little layered embellishment with a stamped sentiment on it. Overall, I think everything flowed together quite well on this card.

Simply Thankful

These are the two cards that I made this evening. I started with leftover pieces of card stock that I just folded in half to make a card. They ended up being 5 1/2" x 5". My last card had several mats but these two are very simple and only the second one has a Cricut cut.

Card #1

This card used a piece of patterned paper from a 6 x 6 pack of dollar store paper. The purple strip was a leftover scrap. The 3 little purple flowers are felt and I cut them off of some ribbon that I found in the $1 bin at Michael's. I put some pale green gems at their centres and used the same colour but smaller gem on the four corners of the purple strip. They were from Studio18 in a pack of 50 of varying sizes for $1. The sentiment is a wooden stamp that I got in a small set from the dollar store and I used Pamass pigment ink which is also from a dollar store. It is not the best quality ink but I picked up a few colours to practice with before I spend money on better quality stuff.

Card #2

This card started with a piece of burgundy brown CM card stock and I layered a piece of printed paper on it that had come out of one of my Dollar Giant 6 x 6 paper pads. These little pads have been great and so cheap!. The ribbon is from Dashes, Dots, and Checks. The bright pink and green papers were in a pack of card stock that I picked up at Michaels. I used a frame cut with my Expression and it is from the cartridge Graphically Speaking, and I added a couple of pale purple pearls. Again, the sentiment is a wooden stamp and the ink is Pamass.




The inside of this paper has the other part of the ribbon, so I added a strip of the patterned paper underneath of it, just to finish it and tie it into the front. The area for writing on is the negative cuts that were leftover from the frame. I thought this was a smart and creative way to use them up as the card itself is too dark of a colour to write on!

Beautiful Brown!

I had a leftover piece of brown card stock that I decided to use for a card base. When folded it measured 5 1/2" by 4 1/2". I knew I wanted to try adding more mats to a card so this was my attempt. I am quite happy with it.




I used some leftover ivory card stock from my wedding programs and I used part of a sheet of green paper from my K1 Memories Funky Paper Pad II. The striped paper is also from this pad originally and was a bit that was left over from another project. I chose to run the stripes horizontally this time for a change. The sizes were as follows: ivory 5 1/4 x 4 1/4; striped 4 3/4 x 3 3/4; and the centre ivory 3 1/2 x 2 1/2.

The brown stripe under the centre medallion is two little strips that I had left over from the centres of frames. The frame is in the same dark brown card stock and it is from Wild Cards. I cut it at 3 1/2. Then I simply used my paper cutter to cut a piece of green paper to mat underneath of it. I decided not to pop-dot my medallion this time as it is going to be mailed. The sentiment was one of a small set of rubber stamps that I had picked up at the dollar store and I used my creamy brown Cat Eye to ink it.


I also used my Chestnut Brown and Creamy Brown to ink around all of my papers. I used a left over strip of green for the inside so that I can write on it.

I hope you like this card.

Just a quick post this morning. I've been trying to catch up on my blog reading list and Enfys from Going Buggy has a great giveaway right now. She has a set of 148 ProMarkers to give away. She is also posting videos on different techniques and things she's learned about them. Check it out here.



Here are a couple of quick cards I made using one 81/2 x 11 sheet of grey-blue CM card stock. The gingham was some pre-cut strips also from CM. The lace on the bottom is a strip of white card stock that has been cut with my Sunflower scissors and then hole-punched. I think it has an old-fashioned feel to it and so I simply added some buttons and raffia as embellishments. Hope you like them and don't forget to head over to Enfys blog and check out the ProMarkers!

Bird Bonanza

Fantabulous Cricut's Challenge Me Monday was to create a project using something having to do with a bird. Since I still require more Thank-You cards (some day I will be done them). I chose to make a card using the oval from Wild Card. I thought it looked a bit like a fancy cage.


The bird was cut using the mini cartridge Home Decor. I liked the tail on this bird! I chose to do both the base and the blackout in white and cut it at 4". Then I added some white glitter to the base before gluing it to the blackout. I really like the white on white. This picture doesn't do it justice. Originally, I had planned to put the bird on the inside and just leave the card base open, but the bird didn't really show up, so I lined the card and then used small dimensionals to pop the bird on the front. Then after I was done, I decided it still didn't look finished so I inked the edges, added a ribbon and some bling. A much more finished looking card now I think!




On the inside of the card, I used a stamp to say Thank You. I am not too happy about how the stamp turned out. I really need to practice stamping. I also put a lining on the left side so that it was not just white paper. I hope you like my little bird. As I said it has a little twinkle to it that just doesn't show up in the picture!

Purpleiscious Thank You Cards

Here is a few more Thank You's. You must be getting as tired of looking at them as I am of making them. These ones I made out of scrap bits of cardstock and then I found some coordinating printed papers in my 6 x6 packs that I found at the dollar store.

I like how this one looks like a book.

This one kind of looks like a belt and buckle.

The lime green really set off the paint splotch paper and of course, I added some lighter writing spaces inside. The purple butterfly and flower on the one card are from Creative Memories (old) and of course, I used my Expression to cut the sentiments.