September 22 & 23/2018 A Christmas Card Buffet

Four months until Christmas may seem like a long time away, BUT there are Christmas cards to be made, addressed and mailed!
Stampin’ Up! has made it easy this year with lots of coordinating stamps and dies in the Holiday Mini.

This first card uses ‘Peaceful Poinsettia 'with Blends to color.  The second card uses the tree from ‘Rooted in Nature’ with the ‘Hometown Greetings’ edgelits. Unfortunately the glittery greeting doesn’t show in the photo – a mixture of black embossing powder and glitter was used to heat emboss it.
                                 
This ‘Blizzard’ Thinlits die is wonderful!  Not only can you use the snowflakes that are cut out, but the cut up paper (or vellum as we used here) can be used as a background.  The Merry Christmas card uses ‘Joyous Noel’ DSP -  with its copper foil accents it’s beautiful. Add a strip of copper foil and a snowflake and put it on a layer of whisper white embossed with the Tufted embossing folder and a pretty quick card is the result.
            
This is a trifold card – hard to take a photo of it!  Gold embossed to match the gold in the ‘All is Bright’ DSP.
                                                  
Tumbling ‘Spirited Snowmen’… I love snowmen!  The top of the card was EMBOSSED with the CUTTING Framelit from ‘Stitched Labels’.  It’s easy to do using the Big Shot Embossing Mats (p.221 in the Annual Catalogue).
                                               
      Just the dies from ‘Peaceful Poinsettia’ were used on the first card. We cut two solid images from Very Vanilla and then the outline image from Gold foil. The gold glitter sprigs were punched with the ‘Sprig’ punch. The Merry Christmas card uses the ‘Dashing Deer’ Thinlits and the ‘Tin Tile’ dynamic embossing folder. A light sponging with bright copper ‘Shimmer Paint’ highlighted the design. Did you notice the little scallops on the left of the Merry Christmas banner? They are the tiny die cut snowflakes like the one in the top right of the card.
                    
The ‘Spirited Snowmen’ couple are cute but the card is almost elegant with it’s forest of ‘Winter Woods’ trees. The glittery snow on the trees and the snow banks is hard to see in the photo but its there!!  The Making Spirits Bright card uses retired Stampin’ Up! layering star dies. The music, although not Christmas (Sheet Music p. 174 in the Annual Catalogue), makes for a joyful card.
                               

August 25 & 26 Christmas Card Buffet

I think I managed to use new dies, stamp sets and DSP from the new Holiday Mini on all but 2 of these cards! This Mini is filled with a lot of wonderful new product - unfortunately for me!.

A skating snowman from the new set in the Holiday Mini –‘Spirited Snowmen’. Lemon Lime Twist you ask? Well it’s green and it goes great with Real Red!!! The next card uses another something new from the Holiday mini - the dies that coordinate with the ‘Winter Woods’ set. The swirl of stars is from Starlight Thinlits.

                             

The ‘Blizzard’ die (yes it’s new too) was used not only to cut the snowflakes but also to EMBOSS the Night of Navy background. We used the Big Shot Embossing mats (p.221) in the Annual Catalogue to emboss rather than cut. The little village card was made using the ‘Heart Comes Home’ set with it’s coordinating dies.

     

Love this card. Straight out of the Holiday Mini, p. 28. It uses the ‘Peaceful Noel’ set and the ‘Sprig’ punch as well as the new Merry Merlot & Copper ribbon. The Everyday Label punch created the corner notches. The next card is straight out of the Mini too (p.27). It uses the ‘Winter Woods’ stamp set and coordinating dies.

                             

Another new die is the ‘Merry Christmas’ Thinlits, p.5 in the Holiday Mini. Quick and easy!    Beautiful, Beautiful DSP (‘All is Bright’ on p.6 of the Mini) is the focus of this card - thanks Rita for your input. The die used for the Noel banner is from ‘Stitched Labels’ Framelits in the Annual Catalogue.

      

The ‘Seasonal Wreath’ embossing folder is the focus of this silver card. Simple, quick and easy!   The Christmas Wishes card might look complicated but the ‘Detailed Poinsettia’ Thinlits make it really easy to make (new in the Holiday Mini, p.22). The words come from the coordinating stamp set ‘Peaceful Poinsettia’. It also uses the really pretty Merry Merlot and Copper ribbon. The words, Christmas Wishes, are die cut using one of the frames in the ‘Foliage Frame’ Framelits (p.217 in the Annual Catalogue).

                             

July 21 & 22/2018 Christmas Card Buffet

Glittery, shimmery and shiny describes the first Christmas Card Buffet of the year. Small, medium and large wreaths, presents and pine cones, die cuts and embossing folders… we were busy all day!!

                               

       

                               

         

                               

November 25/2017 Christmas Card Buffet

It was the last Buffet for this year with a variety of cards.  There were traditional Christmas colours and designs to a few different colours and non-traditional designs.

The tea latte with the tiny tea bag turned into a cappuccino by simply removing the tea bag.  The glimmer on the big snowflake unfortunately doesn't show in the photo.

Similarly the sparkle on the topiary, birch trees and Noel didn’t photograph well.  But, they were all very pretty and kept everyone busy creating!

October 28/2017 A Stamping Retreat and Mini Christmas Buffet

We had a wonderful day of getting together with friends, enjoying a potluck lunch and doing a little paper crafting. 

There were 5 Christmas cards to choose from  - just in case the attendees had no unfinished projects of their own to work on.  (Wouldn’t that be nice – nothing unfinished!)

Here are the cards…

      This could easily be an All Occasion Card… substitute ‘Be Merry’ for other words and you have a perfect masculine card.             

     Everything glittered on this card from the flowers & leaves to the layer behind the lattice die cut.

      With a little sponging and ‘direct to paper’ with an ink pad we created an easy night scene with silver embossing.

     It’s really hard to see the gorgeous glitter on the crumb cake tree and star, but believe me it is there.  It was done with a Wink of Stella.

     A very simple card with glitter on the roof tops, in the ‘snow drifts’ and up in the sky.  All done using the fine tip glue pen and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

August 26 & 27/2017 Christmas in August–A Card Buffet

Oh so many lovely dies and stamp sets and embossing folders!!  We were busy all day (and some came the next day too), but did manage to finish all the cards.

Some were traditional, some were elegant, one was an ‘oldie but a goodie’, one used a stamp from a Halloween set and there was even a Christmas Rose.  AND, ALL of them used the Bigshot in one way or another.

Watch for the next ‘Mini Christmas Buffet’ coming on October 28 at the All Day Stamp Retreat .  Be sure and save the date!