Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you've had a great weekend so far. If you're in the US, you probably have given your stomach a good workout over Thanksgiving and then your boday decorating for Christmas and the holiday season. It was nice to take a break during all the hubub yesterday to reflect and make a card to remind me of the Reason For The Season.

The city die cuts and the scroll are from the O Holy Night Collection from Heartfelt Creations. The scroll is cut from their paper pad for the collection so it made it really easy to create this piece of ephemera. 

The background of this card was created by placing Silver Glitter Washi Tape on the edges of an A2 card base. Then I placed the corrogated piece on top. Here's a upcycling tip I learned from Carol Duval when I was a wee one (LOL!). Use a liner from a light bulb box! Works perfectly and they tend to be either a nice white or natural color like this one. The city scene is made from two identical Heartfelt Creation die cuts that I cut and stacked to appear as if it were on a hill. I used a few pieces of foam tape for some of the cuts for added dimension as well. I nestled in two Palm Tree Brads and then started decorating the rest of the card.

Around the scroll, I placed the Snowflake Bling-1 1/2" Size and two of the Music Note Brads. To accent the scroll image, I cut single bling apart from Red Strip Jewel Bling. I'm always amazed at how a few Eyelet Outlet Products can take a card from good to great with just a little bit of effort! 

Thanks for stopping by today. Enjoy you Sunday and I'll see you again next week!

A Pair of Christmas Floral Cards

Are you a traditionalist when it comes to the holiday season or a trail blazer? I am definitely a traditionalist. I LOVE red and green for Christmas and although I admire the pretty pastels that many embrace, it's just not the first color pallette I go for when it comes to Christmas. Today's projects reflect my traditional holiday preference of red and green colors and there are some great options from CutCardStock to choose from.

One image I love for Christmas is fresh florals paired with pine boughs and this is the look that inspired my cards today. The florals on these cards are actually a single very large stamp cut in half and placed on red and green card bases made from CutCardStock's DSC Discount line. This is a high quality 80 lb cardstock with a light canvas finish. In this case, I chose the perfect Christmas Habanero Red and Bonsai Green.

The stamp I used is called Glorious Bouquet, a Tim Holtz and Stamper's Anonymous collaboration. It's not really a Christmas stamp but I love getting lots of use out of my florals and you can make any floral have a holiday look by the colors you choose and adding a little shine. I used Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Smooth. The 110 lb weight is perfect for alchohol ink coloring. After stamping the image with Versamark Onyx Black, I Copic colored the oversized stamp in rustic reds, pinks, oranges and hints of yellow. Then I fussy cut the image out.

I used a Kaptron waterbrush to apply Cosmic Shimmer Green Pearl Opal Polish to the white areas of the cut out image, including the edges. This gave it a bit of a glow and that holiday touch. The cardstock is good quality and it had no problem taking the marker saturation and the watercolor application without puckering or bleeding. It is important to make sure you use a waterproof ink for stamping in this scenario or it will bleed.

After drying, I picked a strategic location to slice this huge stamp in half.

I prepared my 5 x 7 card bases out of CutCardStock Green and Red by cutting each piece 7" x 10" and folding in half. On the red card, I glued a strip of pine tree patterned paper from my scrap stash and then applied Skinny Gold Glitter and Sparkle Copper Foil Tapes from Eyelet Outlet as borders. I trimmed the tapes at the card edges with a scissor. No extra gluing required and the use of glitter tape gives it great sparkle without the mess of working with loose glitter. Extra bonus! The glitter doesn't shed so the recipient doesn't end up with glitter everywhere either.

The next step was to splatter the card with slightly watered down Delta Creamcoat White Acrylic Paint. The white splatter looks so great on the deep red and green cardstock! After that dried, I adhered the stamped image on the edge and added the chipboard word with Joy written in red glitter. I placed a small pointsettia 3D sticker on the O and added a matching star. You can choose to use any large word stamped and/or cut out of cardstock. If you want a chunkier look, you can cut 3 or more layers of the cut word shape and glue them together to get a faux chipboard look. 

I proceeded to complete the green card in a very similar way. I chose to use the same pine tree designer paper and the thin gold glitter washi again but this time used Sparkle Glitter Red Washi Tape from Eyelet Outlet in place of the copper foil tape.

I splattered this one with acrylic paint and added the stamped floral image and the chipboard word with Noel written in red glitter. Again, I place a small 3D pointsettia sticker over the O and added a glittered and jeweled holly to the top of the N.

I really enjoyed making these cards. If you a traditionalist like me, you need to check out the beautiful red, green and white discount cardstock at the store. They are the absolutely perfect holiday colors and they are on sale this month. Check them out!

So what are you making for the holidays? Whether it be cards, scrapbook pages or holiday decor items, you will like the weight, color and texture of DCS Discount Cardstock. I should also mention that it cuts very well in both steel dies or in cutting machines. You really can't ask more out of a cardstock. Happy holiday crafting y'all! 

Have a great week!

Janet