Christmas Tags & Cards

It’s almost March already? How on Earth did that happen? 😀

I still hope everyone of you had a wonderful Christmas and a great start of 2019 – it’s been supremely busy here and the cozy Christmas/ New Year slump has finally worn off, albeit not without two (!) nasty cases of the lurgy – one at the beginning of January and one at the beginning of February. It’s the gift that keeps on giving 😉

Needless to say, I haven’t gotten ’round to doing much more than staying alive, working and really barely anything else. I was considering just not posting any of my many Christmas/ Holiday cards since it’s already March, but then again it’s my blog and I can post whatever I like, so here goes – grab a cup of tea and get comfortable! 😀

So just to separate tags from cards, let’s get started with a little gallery:
(if you click on a picture, it’ll display a larger version of the image)

The tags with the cool blending technique were a total CASE of Cathy Zielske’s awesome idea, to be seen here. I love Cathy and all that she does!

(The dies are ‘Avery Elle Tags a Lot’ and ‘Simon Says Stamp CHRISTMAS TREES’; the stamps are by Lora Bailora, bastisrike and Kelly Purkey)

Now onto a roundup of a great number of cards that I made for Christmas. It was a lot as you’ll see in a moment, and a few of these were produced several times, to be sent off or hand-delivered to the 54 (!) recipients that there were in 2018.

Let’s start with the cards featuring a tree motif:

A few deets on some of them: The first four are inspired by the incredible Laura Bassen and her beautiful use of the Christmas Trees Wafer Dies by Simon Says Stamp: see here.

As you can see, I started out copying her idea, just using the papers and stamps I had on hand. I then switched up the design and incorporated other elements like the splatters and staples as well as a tiny star (taken from the Home & Hearth Die Set by Julie Ebersole for Ellenhutson.com).

With card #5 above, I again started out by copying this awesome idea of Julia alias der kleine klecks, the second card however shows another use of the tree detail with different ingredients thrown in the mix. I adore the stamp there, it’s from the Scrapbook Werkstatt advent calendar my sweet boyfriend had gotten me. Spring Moss makes for a great card base and a Home & Hearth star was added for good measure. I love this one!

BTW the beautiful banner on card #6 is by Concord & 9th – so cool to really show off busy background paper! (Saw that idea somewhere on Barbara’s blog.)

Next up: Polar bears!

These adorable little critters on card #1-4 are from a stamp set by Lora Bailora, colored in simply with colored pencils and cut out with my trusty SU! paper snips. This was the first time ever that I’d tried out a blending tool and for that, I’d say those starry backgrounds aren’t half bad 🙂

For these cards, I had no plan whatsoever and just kept pushing things around and adding things until I liked it. The cute polar bear Post-It note is by Paper Poetry and the background stamps on this card are from an old set by the Girls Paperie.

The last pic here is a card design that is a total CASE from this genius creation by Kay Miller, which I – as suggested in the post – stamped with my MISTI in order to mass-produce this mail-friendly one-layer wonder to send out to dear colleagues this holiday season.

Moving on to another design I made multiples of:

A slight variation of this wonderful creation made by Angeline Yong Jeet Leen, who so ingeniously used the Piestra Tile from Memory Box that I just *had* to have it. (I know you understand 😀 )

The paper used here is gorgeous Rustic White by Papertrey Ink, the washi is from Crate Paper and the silver splatters (sparkly IRL) are Mr. Huey’s. Feel free to ask about other supplies that I’ve not mentioned specifically.

These weren’t as mail-friendly as expected because the Garn&Mehr bows did make for a bulky card in the end. Oh well 😉

These two here have a bit of an old & new theme going on:

For the first one, I wanted to use my new supplies including the “Ho Ho Ho” embossing folder as well as the “Frohe Weihnachten” (Merry Christmas) die, both by Mundart Stempel from Switzerland.

The second one is certainly one of my favorites from the whole bunch, it uses an image and a greeting from a free Christmas postcard I snatched up at a store downtown a few years back. I had to fussy-cut it and the red parts all have a cool glossy finish, which makes it really stand out. The background was stamped with that same Girls Paperie set I love to use, some silver splatters for some extra glam and the Sweet Blush card base really make the red pop. I’m smitten! ❤

And drumroll… last but not least: Some jolly Santas! Recycled ones, at that!

These were cut out from wrapping paper I had saved from some years ago – I thought these Santas were just too cute to toss! So they were fussy cut, added to some cardstock and popped up with foam tape. I love the “Santa’s on his way” sentiment (Santa’s Flight by Julie Ebersole for Ellenhutson.com) combined with the winking Santa.

And of course that very last card is a nod to one of our favorite shows: RuPaul’s Drag Race. If you know it, that’s the very pose RuPaul always strikes before the final runway on each episode, always announcing “And may the best woman… win!”. So when I realized that, I was sooo excited 😀 It was clear that this Santa plus a matching witty sentiment would *have* to be on the Christmas Card for the boyfriend this year. *grin*

So there you have it! 😀

Sorry if some of the pics are less than stellar – it was nearly impossible to get any good shots before these were mailed off due to the utter lack of light in December.

I hope you like the cards, I’d love to hear from you 🙂

See you soon!
Nina

About ninasays

A conference interpreter (German, English, French), living in Mannheim, Germany and taking an interest in an array of things such as papercrafting, language matters and food. Thanks for taking a look at my blog :)

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