Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Christmas card keeper

I usually save the Christmas cards I receive for a while, in fact I still have a can full of Christmas cards from last year.  It was meant to be a temporary storage place but  turned out to last for quite some time.  This year I wanted something decorative and easy to display so I made a card keeper out of chipboard and leftover papers and accents. 

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I started with some 8 x 8 chipboard pieces and covered them with holiday papers that I had left from a pad of papers.

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I added some chipboard, tissue tape, rhinestone accents and some other leftover stickers and accents.  

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One new thing I used was some elastic trim which was a great find at my local Tuesday Morning store for $1.99.  White wasn’t going to work so I tinted it green with some Walnut Ink.

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I gathered scraps of holiday papers, punched them and made the pages of my card keeper.

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Then I gathered the cards I received and started taping them to the pages of my book.

 DSCN0817 The card keeper ended up being rather thick with all the cards so the elastic trim helps keep the book closed.

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I’m very happy to have a decorative place to store the cards I received using mostly leftover papers and other holiday embellishments I had.

Do you keep your holiday cards and if so how do you store them?

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Glitter cards

I love the champagne glitter paper from Stampin Up and had to make a few holiday cards with it.  I made sure to use almost every scrap of it using both the positive and negative images of snowflakes I cut out.

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It was hard to get a  good picture of paper.  It is almost a bronze color.

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  The smaller snowflakes on this card were cut out of the paper that the snowflake paper is mounted on.DSCN0617

The card has a secret, the paper moved when I was cutting it out so I ‘hid’ the incomplete portion of the snowflake behind another snowflake and the ribbon.

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This card has lots of shine with a shimmery white paper behind the negative image from the snowflake die.

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I thought the glittered snowflake and ribbon was all that was needed for a couple striking cards.

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I loved the glitter paper with the Night of Navy cardstock.

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These are just a few of the cards I was able to make with the glitter paper.  I have about a dozen more  cards made and will have to share a few more of them in a few days.

Have you been thinking of or making Christmas cards yet?

Christmas cards

I’ve been busy making a lot of Christmas cards so I though I’d share a few of them with you today.

 June @ I will craft Christmas card (2)

I had a sheet of glittered accents that made this card quick and easy.

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I love the glittered edges of this tag. 

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Another quick and easy card with a glittered accent.

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I love how just the Christmas and flourishes are glittered.

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June @  I will craft Christmas card 5

The pennant was a bit larger than my usual card size would allow so I made a few long cards that will fit in a letter size envelope.

These and other cards are headed to my Etsy store for card assortments.  If you want to send handmade Christmas cards but don’t have time to make your own let me make an assortment just for you. 

Monday, January 23, 2012

A trip to the mall and a jackpot

This past weekend I dropped my daughter off at the mall so I had a few hours to myself to do a little browsing.  I really didn’t plan on spending much if any money as my budget  is rather tight right now.

I did however have $10 left from a gift card to Tuesday Morning so I decided to make that one of the stores I stopped at.  They had new paper in stock and I narrowed it down to 4 packs at $1.99 each.  Really how can you resist 25 sheets of 12 X 12 papers for 2 bucks?

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It really is more paper than I need as I have bookshelves of paper but what’s a little more?  Three of the papers have yellow in them and I found a pack of matching ribbon for only $1.99.

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Even if I use only a few sheets I think the packs are worth it as usually paper at my local craft stores is $.59 to $.99 for the plain cardstock or thin pattern paper and the detailed or glittered paper is $1.49 to $2.49 a sheet. Two of the packs I bought have glitter on them and one had embossed images. Score!

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The papers all have a solid background so they are perfect papers for my card making.  I can use the solid and pattern as coordinating layers.

I think the papers and ribbon was a great use of the rest of my holiday money.

The last store I decided to stop at was Michael’s and – JACKPOT – 90% off the remaining fall and Christmas items.  The last time I was there it was 70% off and I was happy with the frames that I used for the Mini Love Frames at $.45 each.

There were no frames left since I pretty bought them all before but I did find some other great items.   Most will be used as card accents but I did find some great coasters as well that I’ll recover in some recycled leather and add them to my Etsy store.

Please forgive the bad pictures but here is the loot…

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Can you believe I picked up 42 items for $8.44!!  Whoo Hoo.  That keeps in the spirit of not spending much and getting a lot of new things to play with.

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I loved these rhinestone accents – I even used one on a card already for a order of thank you cards that I mailed out today.  I only wish there were more of them, I dug through and picked out all of the thanks and left the fall and autumn words that were there since I wasn’t sure how I’d use them.

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I restrained myself and only bought two or each of the rub on packs.  I love the antique feel to them and think they will make great accents on cards.

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I always love rhinestone accents but only one of the packs was from the 90% off, the others were just over half off.  The snowflake buttons will make great accents after I snip off the button shank.

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I have a few packs of coasters but these Christmas print ones are a lot thicker than most so I think they will make great bases for my recycled leather coasters.

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These envelope seals are fun and I think a little rub and buff will transform them into metallic beauties.100_9280

I love finding silk flower accents.  They are easy to take apart and use the blooms on my cards and usually save me quite a of money and are a bit more unique than the ones in the scrapbook section.

I guess I have my daughter to thank for all the great deals I found this weekend.  For under $20 I got a ton of craft supplies.  Don’t overlook the holiday clearance section if you don’t need more holiday decorations, you never know what you will find and how easy it will be to transform into something beautiful.

I didn’t plan on going shopping and wouldn’t have unless she wanted to go to the mall for a bit to hang out with her friends, but I’m glad I did.

 

June

I usually link to these fabulous parties:

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Deck the halls

At first glance I don’t think this cards looks all that Christmassy.  Hmm Christmassy made it through spell check! 

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When I was making this card I was a bit unsure where it was going.  You see I was working on Christmas cards and ran out of the cardstock I was using with the patterned paper I had.  I had a little bit left so went searching for another matching cardstock and came up with this turquoise-aqua paper.  It matched but was not a color that said Christmas to me.

The cardstock in person is a bit more aqua than I could get the picture to show.  I find aqua is a hard color for me to get a true to lift color when I’m taking pictures.  I tried may different locations and just can’t seem to find the perfect spot.

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Who would have thought that a card could be both bright and muted?

I think the brown distressing toned down the bright cardstock and helped make this card of of my favorites.  I’m like that sometimes, the stranger the color combination, the more I like it.

Last year I made a few pink Christmas cards.  What is your most unusual color you’ve used for your holiday cards?

June

I usually link to these fabulous parties:

Friday, October 28, 2011

Vintage feel holiday cards

One of my favorite places to get discounted craft supplies is my local Tuesday Morning store.  For the size that the store is they have a fair amount of paper and other craft supplies.  I’ve bought many paper packs for there for pennies on the dollar compared to my local craft store.

Some of the items are at a great price and some are not so great.  I’ve been lusting over this pack of embellishments the last few times I’ve been in the store.  I just couldn’t bring myself to pay $19.99 for this pack until yesterday.  I figured if I kept looking at it and putting it down at the last minute that I should just get it.  It was hard paying that much for it since there wasn’t matching paper but I was pretty sure that the papers I recently won would match pretty well.

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The pack came with two boxes of chipboard letters and numbers, a pack of buttons, a pack of embellished snowflakes, paper flowers,

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fun vintage vibe trims,

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tons of stickers, and a stamp set.

It really was a lot of items for the price.

100_9017  Luckily it did match with the papers I won a couple weeks ago so I have new stamps and embellishment for some Christmas cards.

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With one sheet of the patterned paper, two sheets of yellow cardstock and three sheets of burgundy paper I sat down and made 10 cards with this same basic layout.

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Some have flowers, some snowflakes, some have ribbon and some I stamped a sentiment instead of the chipboard letters.

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I love the cards and listed them in my Etsy store to see if they sell.  If not they have a good home with me and might get mailed out to family and friends.  I might have to hand deliver rather than mail as most of them will require extra postage since the embellishments are so thick.

I loved these snowflakes and flowers so much that they inspired me to make some flower rosettes with my Tim Holtz die.  I loved the result and have to say it is getting rather addicting.  I think I made fourteen of them last night from one sheet of 12 x 12 paper.

Stay tuned for more holiday cards with my handmade rosettes inspired by the ones I bought.

Are you getting ready for the holiday season?

I can’t believe Christmas is less than two months away!

June

I usually link to these fabulous parties: