Christmas · No Stamp Design

Merry Through the Branches

TGIF, everybody! I’m not sure if I feel like this week whizzed by or if I feel like it dragged. I guess it kinda depended on the day. All is I know is that I’ve been in race mode to get back home every day to hide all of the boxes that Amazon delivered. *snicker* Anybody else?

Well, I’m still whittling away at my holiday card stash in hopes that I’ll have enough cards made to send out to at least half of the annual mailing list. We shall see how many I can turn out this weekend. One thing that really helps when you get in a crunch is finding easy designs, and that’s exactly what we’ve been up to this week. And today we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More cards with the Regal Distressed Patterns paper and using a sketch from the Holiday Mini catalog to create this simple card. Let’s check it out.

The inspiration for today’s clean & simple card layout comes from the first sketch in the Holiday Mini catalog. We get started on our card with a base of Mossy Meadow cardstock to tie in the evergreen needles in our focal image. I pulled the small evergreen Merry Christmas card from the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack to serve as the focal image and sentiment. We dress it up just a touch with a secondary sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack that is layered on top of some Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon. We finish off our pops of coordinating green elements with some sparkly glitter dots in opposing corners.

This card comes together in less than 5 minutes flat! Another perfect addition to the arsenal of make-it-quick designs. I hope you’ll drop in tomorrow to see what else I can pull together from the holiday product stash. I’m thinking we’ll dig into the dies tomorrow, but we’ll see where the crafty muses take me once I lay out the options.

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

Plaid Tidings

Welcome to hump day. Midweek. Middle of the road. It always seems like the weeks go more quickly as we get into December. Is it just me?

This week we’re whipping up some super quick Christmas cards. And today I’m still hanging out with the Christmas Tags & More pack and getting a closer look at the and more part, in particular, as the tags take center stage.

Today’s card gets started with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. The Christmas plaid paper from the Christmas Tags & More pack serves as our festive backdrop for the main attraction. The focal image is the Christmas tree tag from the pack that has been cut with one of the smaller dies from the Sentimental Framing set. A larger die from the same set gives us our dazzling spruce glimmer mat, which really helps our tree pop against the plaid. Our sentiment — from the Greetings for You ephemera pack — sits atop a twist of gold ribbon and a banner of Crumb Cake stripes. The bow of Real Red shiny ribbon and festive sequins scattered across the front finish things off with the perfect amount of holiday twinkle.

I hope you’ll tune in tomorrow as we pair up some more fun holiday goodies from the crafty stash to make another quick and easy card for the holiday card list!

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

Baubles and Bows

Welcome back, everyone. I don’t know about you, but today was a Monday disguised as a Tuesday — whew! But luckily I worked ahead in anticipation of a tight schedule today.

This week, we’re making clean and simple Christmas cards for my holiday mailing list. Today’s card combines a little old and some new to create this festive design as we pair up the retired Take a Bow paper with the Christmas Tags & More paper pack.

We get started with a base of Crumb Cake and use a sheet of the retired Take a Bow paper to serve as our focal panel base. I chose the sheet of ornaments from the Christmas Tags & More paper pack as the focal panel. I added a bow of gold trim to dress up the center ornament. And from there we’re just adding a sentiment and some embellishments. The sentiment from the Greeting for You ephemera pack sits on top of a small panel of holly and ivy paper with a sprig of holly and ivy on the side to coordinate. This are all popped up with dimensionals to draw our eye to the sentiment section. A few Old Olive glitter sequins in the corner add the perfect pop of color and sparkle.

This is another no-stamp design you can turn out in five minutes or less. And when you’re pressed for time to get those holiday cards in the mail, that’s the perfect answer to a more personalized holiday greeting!

The kiddo has a basketball game tomorrow, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to steal a few minutes to make and share another fun clean and simple holiday card with you!

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Christmas · No Stamp Design

No Stamp Merry Merry

Well, how do you do? Isn’t that the appropriate thing to say when you’re meeting a stranger….. I kinda feel like a stranger at this point. I just need a little break because I was feeling overwhelmed trying to keep all of the balls in the air. Do you ever feel that way? It’s perfectly normal. And knowing what you need to recenter is key. I knew I needed to put a few balls back in the basket for a little bit.

Now that life is a little more manageable, I’m diving back in. And I am SO excited because it’s time to gear up and make my Christmas cards. Although I’ve taken a break from social media for the last month, I haven’t been away from the craft room. And I learned some nifty new tricks as I was prepping for a big Christmas craft faire and look forward to sharing the new giftie fun folds I have in the repertoire! But this week we’re keeping things simple.

Today we’re getting started with a no-stamp holiday card design because y’all, I’m behind on my own Christmas cards! EEK! So I need some designs that I can turn out quickly. And today’s card combines some of my current faves in the holiday-ish crafty stash — with SU!’s Traditions of Christmas and Season of Elegance paired up with ephemera and pops of gold foil for support. You’re going to love how easy this is!

We get started with a nice neutral background of white cardstock. A sheet of the beautiful Real Red Season of Elegance gold foiled paper serves as our background. The focal section is a combination of what I like to call and artsy panel element and a sentiment. The artsy panel has a background of the white and gold foiled graph pattern from the Regal Distressed Patterns paper pack, a mat of gold foil, and the pièce de résistance — the poinsettia & mixed greenery patterned sheet from the Traditions of Christmas paper pack. This whole panel is elevated with dimensionals to really give it that piece-of-art feeling. I chose a simple sentiment — the round merry & bright panel — from the Greetings for You ephemera pack as the compliment and placed it in the bottom-left corner of the artsy panel, putting it just a tick above our patterned panel. We finish things off with a box of Real Red shiny ribbon & some of the Pool Party Traditional Sparkling sequins.

Isn’t this just a stunner? Super easy and oh-so elegant! I hope you’ll pop in this week to see what other quick & easy holiday cards I come up with!

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L2S Group Instahop · Winter

Snowy Window

Thanks for dropping in today, friends! After a looooong day at work yesterday, I didn’t have any zip left to play in the craft room. But never fear, that childhood throwback card is coming to you tomorrow!

But today, we’re hopping along with the Luv 2 Stamp Group over on Instagram. And we’re continuing our snowflake series as we combine the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper with the Winter Scenes stamps to create today’s shaker window card. Let’s check it out.

We get started with a base of Pretty Peacock cardstock. Two panels of the Pretty Peacock frost pattern from the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper cover both the front and back of our front card panel. The window is cut using the Everyday Arches dies, and I ran the whole sheebang through the machine a couple of times to be sure it cut all the way through all of the layers. Acetate window sheets create our shaker panel, and we adhere one on each side of our card front, filling the shaker with sparkly things, and then adhering our patterned paper covers on each side. We dressed up the window with two small arches cut from white cardstock using nesting dies from the Everyday Arches set. And then the upper corner of the window has a snowflake cut from a combination of Peaceful Garden silver glimmer paper and a sheet of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper. This snowflake is the perfect compliment to our snowy winter scene.

The smallest center arched piece is used for our image panel. The image from the Winter Scenes stamp set is stamped in black and then colored with a combination of Stampin’ Blends and blending brushes. To give it the sparkle of falling and fallen snow, I covered the snowy bits with Wink of Stella. The sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack is adhered over Balmy Blue sheer ribbon with several layers of dimensionals and affixed underneath the focal image. A few Traditional Sparkling sequins on the inside and outside focal panels finish things off with the perfect amount of twinkle.

Today’s card is a part of the Luv 2 Stamp Group Instagram Hop, which goes live at 9 AM Pacific Time (PST).  Click here to head over to my Instagram feed at 9 AM Pacific/11 AM Central and check out what the other demos in our L2S Group have created for you today! 

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Elegant Pine Snowflakes · Winter

Season of Snow

Welcome back, friends. This week, we’re having all kinds of snowy fun as we explore some of the great snow-inspired products in our crafty stash. Today’s clean and simple design uses the Elegant Pine Snowflakes products and Greetings for You ephemera to create this lovely embossed design. Let’s check it out.

We get started with a base of Secret Sea cardstock. The focal panel starts with a sheet of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes patterned paper, which we’re going to mat with a sheet of the Cloud Cover Flower Garden Foils specialty paper. I really wanted the patterned paper to take center stage, so I opted for an embossed effect for the focal images. I arranged three of the Delicate Pines stamps over the coordinating images in the paper and stamped in Versamark before heat embossing with clear embossing powder. I just love this shimmery, raised effect that really draws attention to the beautiful detailed snowflakes. We finish things off with a ’tis the season sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack, which is mounted over a twist of Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon using dimensionals. A scatter of Old Olive sparkling sequins finish things off with a touch of coordinating color.

Tomorrow we’re going to have a throwback to our childhood as we use the paper snowflake effect. I hope you’ll drop in and check it out!

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Winter

Joyful Flakes

Welcome to fall, y’all! When I was choosing this week’s design theme, ironically, I didn’t even think to make it coincide with the changing of the seasons here. That’s a real face-palm moment, don’t ya think? *snicker* But that’s just the way it goes sometimes when you’re excited about digging into some new crafty goodness.

This week, we’re delving into everything SNOW. There are some wonderful new snowy products in the new SU! Holiday Mini catalog and Online Exclusives that I can’t wait to show you. And today we’re getting started with a mixture of Elegant Pine Snowflakes & Snowy Delights to create this beautiful card. I decided on the word joy from the Greetings for You ephemera pack because snowflakes bring me joy. What about you?

Our card today gets started with a base of Cloud Cover cardstock. This brings out the subtle hues of blue in our background paper from the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper pack. Our trio of snowflakes is built from two sets of dies – Delicate Pines and Snowy Delights. Using a scrap of the Elegant Pine Snowflakes paper, I cut several different sized snowflakes from a corner of the sheet. I paired up the larger printed snowflake with some of the Summer Splash glimmer paper and cut a detailed snowflake to go behind using the Snowy Delights die. Before adhering the two layers together, I sandwiched a faux bow of Lost Lagoon soft cording in between. The smaller snowflakes are paired with some Shy Shamrock glimmer paper cut using one of the smaller detail snowflake dies from the Delicate Pines die set. They’re adhered together with dimensionals to give them a more realistic depth of field before adhering them to the backdrop with dimensionals. Each snowflake has a center of Traditional Sparkling sequins. The sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack is adhered toward the bottom-center of the card front. (HINT: did you know that these sentiments are already sticky? Just peel the backing & stick!) I added another sparkling sequin as the tittle for J in joy. A few blue sequins in opposing corners finish things off perfectly.

I hope you’ll drop in tomorrow to see what other snowy goodness there is in store!

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Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Wreath of Joy

This week we’ve been making clean & simple holiday card designs using some of the new Stampin’ Up! holiday products that just launched this week. Today we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More cards with the Greetings for You ephemera to create this lovely wreath of joy.

We get started with a base of Early Espresso cardstock. I love how it pulls out the wood stem of the evergreen in the wreath. Our backdrop is one of the larger cards of Christmas plaid from the Joyful Days pack. This really makes things festive. Our focal panel consists of two panels – the wreath card from the Joyful Days pack and the mat of Old Olive Season of Elegance paper. I love how this gives the perfect amount of sparkle that really helps bring our sentiment front and center. The full panel is adhered to the card backdrop using dimensionals. The sentiment JOY is from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and is adhered on multiple layers of dimensionals to ensure it stands tall above the rest of the design. We finish things off with a bow of Mossy Meadow & Gold ribbon at the top-center of our wreath and then some gold sparkly sequins from the Traditional Sparkling Sequins pack in opposing corners to tie the gold elements together.

I hope you’ve gotten some good ideas from this week’s designs to get you started on your holiday card stash. Next week is all about birthdays. I hope you’ll come along as we tour through the crafty stash to make some fun birthday cards.

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Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

Christmas Wishes

Howdy, friends! Have this week’s card designs gotten you into the holiday spirit? Well, today’s card will have you smelling evergreens. *wink*

We’re using some of the new Stampin’ Up! holiday release products to create our clean & simple holiday card designs this week. And today, we’re pairing up the Joyful Days Memories & More card pack with the Christmas Tags & More paper pack with coordinating ephemera sheets and the Greetings for You ephemera pack. And what kind of card would it be if I didn’t include some sparkle? *grin*

We get started with this card with a base of Shaded Spruce cardstock. The background panel is a sheet of snowflake pattern Christmas Tags & More paper diecut with the largest Textured Notes die. The bottom of the panel is wrapped with Shaded Spruce sheer ribbon that is tied off with some gold thread (both now retired). Our focal panel is the smaller evergreen card from the Joyful Days card pack that is matted with some (retired) Shaded Spruce festive glimmer paper and mounted on dimensionals. I added some of the packages from the ephemera sheet included in the Christmas Tags & More pack and mounted them on varying levels of dimensionals for some realistic depth of scene. The tree baubles are some of the traditional sparkling sequins. We finish things off with a holiday sentiment from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and mount it with enough dimensionals to stand above the center focal point.

This is such a super simple design – so fun & so easy to put together. And don’t you think it’s just a lovely way to send some holiday cheer? Tomorrow we’re going to close out this week’s design series with a traditional evergreen wreath. I hope you’ll pop in and check it out.

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Holiday Mini Catalog · Holidays

From Our House

It’s hard to believe that we’re already quickly approaching the weekend. It’s been a super busy week, so it’s really just flying by. I’m gonna need two weekends just to recover. *ha!* So have you gotten to check out all the new goodies that launched yesterday? Which ones are your must-haves? I’m looking forward to playing around more with my faves from the new Holiday Mini catalog & the new Online Exclusives. And since it’s craft show season, I’ll have even more reasons to be in the craft room creating fun new projects!

This week, we’re getting a look at some of the must-haves that I got from the new release. And we’re using the new products to create clean & simple holiday cards. Today’s card combines the Joyful Days Memories & More cards with the Christmas Greenery Dies and the Gathering Together patterned paper to create a design that extends well beyond the traditional Christmas holidays. With the more masculine, neutral color palette, you can easily use this design from fall through winter. And that’s a design I can get behind!

We start with a base of Cherry Cobbler cardstock to tie with the subtle striping in our focal panel plain backdrop. I chose a sheet of the striped foiled Old Olive paper from the Gathering Together paper pack as the full-panel backdrop. It coordinates perfectly with the Joyful Days card that serves as our focal panel background. The evergreen branches are cut from gold foil specialty paper using the Christmas Greenery dies and are tied together with some (now retired) Cherry Cobbler & Gold satin ribbon. The sentiment is from the Greetings for You ephemera pack and is mounted on a small panel of gold & white foiled grid paper from the Nature’s Sweetness paper pack and cut using the Traditional Labels dies. I added some dimensionals behind the sentiment and then behind the full panel when adhering over the greenery to be sure they catch the eye. Some extra sparkle from the traditional sparkling sequins add the perfect coordinating gold finish.

Tomorrow we’re headed to the trees … the Christmas trees. I hope you’ll drop by and check out O Tannenbaum!

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