Christmas in August

The card making bug hit me a couple of years and I have so much fun with it. I have so many supplies....stamps, inks, papers, embellishments, die cutter, embossing machine, etc. I make birthday cards, get well cards, sympathy, and thank you. So if I know it is your birthday, if you are not feeling well, you have done something nice for me or experienced a death of your near and dear, you will get a handmade card from me. 

Last year I made Christmas cards. I was only going to make a few, but had so much fun doing them that I made 45, enough for my whole Christmas card list. And I made the same amount this year. I only ordered one new stamp set from StampinUp and this time I ordered the matching dies. I liked this set because there were so many different ways to use them. I will only show you a few.

For this one I used the larger die to cut through the front of the card.

Inside the card you see the layered words, lots of fiddly gluing.

Same technique as the first card, except I just stamped the word. I liked the layered die-cuts better, even tho it was more work.

I did several variations of this. Lots of stamping and using those three layers of die cuts.

More of the same, this time adding some cute polka-dot ribbon. Don't know why the edges look wavy because they are not.

I think this is my favorite, even tho it was very labor intensive. I used the Sheltering Tree stamp set to stamp the tree, snow drift, and snow flakes. They were all heat embossed. Then I sponged on ink color using a sponge and ink directly from the ink pads. I made 6 of these.

Not a Christmas card, but a new-to-me technique. For the watercolor-looking square, I applied two colors of ink directly onto an acrylic square, misted it with water and then plopped it down onto the card and pressed down. When you remove the square you get this watercolor look. Then I stamped onto it with an old Hot Potato stamp that I have had forever and then flicked some ink onto the background. THEN I die cut a square from the watercolor part and put it back in place, popped up with dimensional squares, hard to tell from the photo. The true colors are little lighter and brighter than what you see. Even with editing, I could not get it to its actual color.

Same technique as the one above, but this time using a Stampin Up stamp from the Sheltering Tree collection. I love this stamp set and have used it so many times in many different ways. Again, true colors are lighter and brighter.

I spent the better part of this week making cards and now I am on to other things. I have to make a collage for my FiberWorks monthly challenge and then I want to play with my new Distress Ink Oxides. 

I am linking up with Off the Wall Friday.