Winter Snow Scene Card

This is a winter scene card I made for our elderly neighbors.  It was a little late for Christmas, but snow was still in the air, so I thought a snow scene might be nice.  The Liquid Applique makes beautiful snow.

The window was cut out and embossed with Labels 1 Nestabilities.  The corners are from a Nestabilities set as well.  I’ll have to look up the set, I am not sure what set they go with at the moment!

Sentiment inside:  JustRight Stampers

Making Bulk Assembly Line Style Christmas Cards

TIME FRAME:

This year, I started my Christmas cards in the fall.   It worked out a lot better and kept the mess out of my holidays.  Highly recommend if you need a lot of cards.  I need about 150 cards (huge family!)

MY GOALS:

I made some decisions based on last year’s card-making:

1. Avoid layers/mats/ribbon bows
2. Avoid two- step cut/embossing.  As pretty as nestabilities are, the layering took too much time and I had trouble finding matching product by the end to go with my colored images.
3. Use as little tape as possible (even at $1 tape rolls, I ate them up last year, think $30-$50.)
4. Imagine a streamlined design, yet one that allows modification to battle boredom.

MY FIRST STEP:

This fall, I first came up with a way to create a nesting point on the page.  I laid an Oval nestability on the card to emboss a focal area without cutting, without gluing, without matting.  Wow, that cut a lot of steps and still looked elegant.

Second, I found a couple “branch” stamps.  The final one was bought on the buy/sell/trade forum at splitcoaststampers.com.  I’ve had great experiences buying used stamps there.  The other branch came with a papertreyink set from a”Take a Bough” puchases at the BST at splitcoaststampers.com as well with ornaments included.  I may do “Ornaments2″  for  my cards next year?  LOL

This year, I borrowed a slim EK success ornament punch from a lady in our scrapping group.  It punched all three ornaments at one time!  I had a little trouble with it sticking at one point, but punches some wax paper through it and it did fine after that.  Changing up the papers helped provide a bit of variety without totally having different sets of cards.  After doing a few card versions last year, I rather liked doing  just one main version this year so that I knew what people were referring to when they commented on it.

I used mighty Dollar popdots instead of tape on some of the cards to add dimension.

On the solid ornaments, I used a gold pen or gold ink and tiny stamps to decorate the ornaments.  My favorite tiny stamps were from a Nativity set I had on hand.  I can’t determine the manufacturer from the slip sheet, but there is a SSC081, C. STM 2006 on it.  the star came from it.

I used JustRite Stamps on the inside for the sentiment, and a family signature stamp I had custom made from ebay for gifts and cards (best investment I’ve made in a while, and only about $10).

For the second batch, I ran out of punched ornaments and used a cut file for ornaments using SCAL software and my Cricut–worked great.

Supplies:

Cards from Hobby Lobby, with 40% off coupon or on sale…collect throughout the year.  Bulk cards on in sets of 50, I think.  I used both white or ivory to match the papers I had handy.

Papers:  Core-dinations Wine cardstock, the cover sheet for $1 paper (punched), and other random paper.

Tape: $1 dotliners (my favorite tape of all time, by Elmer’s.  I can no longer find it at this price.)

“Frost” Shimmer Spritz on some cards (very expensive, but I got it for my birthday from a friend.  I’ve since added water and eyeshadow and it’s still spraying.  It doesn’t go far, but added a nice snowy effect.  I added an oval shield around the spraying area, which made a cool inset of snow.)

Thanks for stopping by!

This Day…

This is my new scrap table I found for $20 last week.  Everytime I sit down at it, I can’t help but have the thought, “Man!  God sure loves me!”  I’m 34 years old, and He still understands my addiction to ink pens and markers and stamps like no other.

This page was created using mostly items from Becky Higgin’s School Years Kit of the Month.  As you all know, I’m totally in love with this kit.  It got me orderly, organized, and going.  It has 12X12 pockets for “stuff” you want to keep, and it just makes it fun to get all their handwriting and school memories recorded. There are LOTS of journaling prompts to help you remember little things you might not otherwise remember to write down, like “transportation”.

The journaling and little star stamp (tabs) were from other stamp sets.  The round “facts” buttons were from my stash.

LOVE the big sticker letters that match the paper.

Okay, so I got Red’s layouts down that I always do around the kids birthdays.  His was in June.  Hopefully, I can get one year done for each of the other two before school starts, but I doubt it.  I look for photos and print one week.  Organize and cut one week, think about layouts a few days, and then glue and journal a couple days.  But, now I can keep it floating without having to clean it every time the kids wind up on the guest bed!  See the cool lamp?  I got it consignment a few days ago.  It has high and low clicks, so I can work even if they are sleeping in there…if I’m quiet!  I got all the wooden boxes consignment as well.  I bought a very old cookie sheet yesterday to use as a magnetic board, but I’m still working on the walls and storage for the room to make it cozy again around the table.

Very Cute Packaging for Mixes — Great for Teacher’s Gifts

Musings of An Addict shared this link to some cute Christmas treat ideas, how to wrap them up in style.  I may use my computer rather than stamping the messages and art. 

As an aside, I don’t like storing wooden block stamps.  I feel they are too heavy, take up too much room, and I don’t use one design enough to warrant a long term investment.   I do use Acrylic Stamps quite a bit.  They are flat, and cling to an acrylic block, and you can see through the block and stamp to square them.  They take VERY little room to store, and I’ve used them over and over and over on various projects. 

I’ll share an example of their use soon with some ornaments I made today using them. 

Technology…gotta love it!  Makes me wanna SHOUT!  (Yeah, it really doesn’t take much to get me goin’!) 

I’ve got my eye on sales for: Winterland (2peas),

and I’m seriously thinking about stocking stuffer ordering these! 

Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps – Flower Trio

 $0.90

 Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps – Elegant Flourishes  (I HEART flourishes!)

  $13.50

Creative Imaginations – Christmas Tag Stickers

 $1.80

Fontwerks Clear Stamps – Datekeeper

$1.78