Christmas Prep

Hello and welcome back! Every year I have more Christmas project ideas than I have time to complete, and I have to hurry to get my Christmas cards completed. Actually, I usually send them and my annual letter out late! Just ask my friends and family. So, for those reasons and because winter has been lingering in my area, I decided this was the perfect year to start my Christmas prep for 2019 early in the year. I'll be sharing both cards and tags, and maybe other items throughout the year this year. For the first half of the year, I'll use stamp sets and supplies that are in the annual catalog or carried over from the 2018 Holiday Catalog. For the second half of the year, I'm sure I'll be featuring new products from the next Holiday Catalog!

This set of cards and tags feature the Christmas Pines Photopolymer Stamp Set, the Pretty Pines Thinlits Dies and the Under The Mistletoe Designer Series Paper. I picked a plaid pattern and a greenery pattern to start with. I cut the patterned paper to 4"x5.5" size, and then cut it in two. It's adhered to the edges of the Sahara Sand card base, with a piece of Sahara Sand over the middle. This allows me to get 6 cards from each 12"x12" piece of patterned paper. I stamped the two step pine branches in both Old Olive and Shaded Spruce Inks. Next I stamped two of the pine cone images in Early Espresso Ink onto Soft Suede Cardstock, and cut them out with the coordinating framelits dies. I die cut two of the branches from Shade Spruce Cardstock, and a bow from Real Red Cardstock. The green branches were adhered directly to the stamped piece, but the pine cones were adhered with Stampin' Dimensionals.

To complete the card, I stamped the greeting in Real Red Ink onto Whisper White Thick Cardstock, and die cut it with the Stitched Shapes Dies. This was adhered to the card with more Stampin' Dimensionals, and the red bow was glued in place under the greeting. I added three Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels to complete the card. I often use more embellishments on my cards, but I think these will make it through the mail better.

Here is the same card with the other patterned paper.

It's more fun to make a stack of cards when I alter the design just a bit.

I have a group of crafty friends that I have met through Stampin' Up!, and we had a challenge this month to make some paper rosettes or medallions. I started with 1" strips of several different papers from the Under The Mistletoe, scored them every 1/4", and then folded them accordion style. I attached the ends together with Tear and Tape and then hot glued them together in the center. These were attached to a scalloped circle die cut from different cardstock colors. I die cut various branches, pine cone pieces and stamped banners to decorate the rosettes with. I used Silver Metallic Thread, Red Rhinestone Basic Jewels and Whisper White 5/8" Flax Ribbon to complete them. Once all of the pieces were cut, it didn't take very long at all to complete 10 of them.

That's all for me today. I hope you can follow along with me this year, and get your Christmas prep started early too.