Whether we are ready or not, Christmas is only a few short weeks away. If you are finding yourself in a crafty mood, you might want to make a card gift box and some notes, or some easy tea-light luminaries. The card box is made even easier with the pre-cut and ready-to-fold boxes from PaperCuts. The price is $19.99 for 25 boxes. These are so easy to decorate because they come flat for stamping and embellishing. This makes a great hostess gift to have on hand.

Now with the battery-operated tea-lights, we don't need to worry about an open flame near the vellum wall. The new tea-lights even have a simulated flicking flame which makes them look even that much more realistic. The cluster of luminaries on the lovely silver doily were a gift to me from a wonderful customer, JoAnne Lloyd.

If you're looking for a different Christmas theme, you might want to consider these adorable polar bears from Sunshine Designs made by Frogs Whiskers. The card was made before the days of circle dies, so we used a scallop circle punch and a straight edge circle punch. The bear to the right hand side is actually sitting inside the card and will remain there when the card is opened. There are a number of lovely snowflake embossing folders to choose from. That is all it takes to change the plain white strip into something snowy and wonderful!

The polar bears have been stamped onto watercolour paper,  coloured with Tombow markers and a water brush to keep the colours nice and soft. The finishing touch would be glue pen and fine opalescent glitter to add that winter sparkle.

This stunning background from Northwoods will allow you to add any of your favourite die-cuts. In the card below, Claudette has used a light blue cardstock and added white chalk wherever she wanted the trees and the snow mounds to show brighter.

I could also see this card done with any of your tree dies cut out and added on the image, or any of your wildlife including rabbits or dogs. She has cut a separate piece of cardstock for the snowhill which is raised in front of the animals feet.

We had a marvelous weekend with Nathalie from Magenta! The card below had some interesting details added. The design on the left of the card was created by using stickers as a stencil and inking through and around them. This lovely vintage Christmas scene was stamped on gloss cardstock to maintain the integrity of all the fine lines. To colour the village scene, we used distress markers, and distress ink pad.

I'm particularly fond of this snowflake because it can be used solely as a design element in any background combination. The Merry Christmas has been stamped in black ink and then traced with a Stardust clear pen to add the shimmer.

We're loving these jars of gilding flakes from Sue Wilson. There are lots of ways to use these lovely combinations of foil leafing. Yes, this is the same type of product you bought 10 yrs ago, that is still sitting in the back of your cupboard :-) . The easiest way to frame up a card or layer is to use your double sided tape, in any width, around the edges of your layer. Apply flakes and brush off excess.

Now that we have a million dies to choose from, every negative frame left over from your die-cut becomes a new frame for a foiled image. Once you've cut out a fairly solid image, apply double-sided tape to the backside of the opening. Now the tacky adhesive will show through the frame ready for foiling. Apply foil flakes gently, brush off excess and then burnish the remaining image with a nice firm brush (like a stipple brush).

 

The white card in the picture above is a good sample of applying the foil thru a die-cut negative. We then used the actual cut-out and used some distress ink to colour it before we applied it to the front of the card. The thin foil line on the left of the same card is a 3mm width of tape with the foil gilding applied.

On the black easel card, Bev has used a stand-up helper die-cut from Elizabeth Dies. The link below will show Els demonstrating the positioning of stand-up-helper dies. This is an older video showing small shapes rather than the new words, but the technique is the same. Although the Best Wishes has been cut from the black card, we have covered it with a silver die-cut on top of the black for a different effect. There are a number of the word-dies in this line that are salutations.

 

http://youtu.be/TA5I_YJQ_3Q

 

 



Sometimes a card base can be as easy as a piece of printed vellum on top of a card layer. The samples below are from Magenta. These are all 12 x 12 sheets, at $1 each. The designs are lovely and simple enough that they will work for many occasion cards. All you're left to add is a layered salutation with perhaps a die-cut or two, and you have an instant card.

 

In the card on the left, we have cut the vellum longer than the card, so we could fold over at top and bottom to adhere to the inside of the front of the card so the adhesive doesn't show. We then cut a liner for the inside of the card.



It is time to get out your alcohol inks again and make some really fun and funky backgrounds. Bev used Watermelon, Sunset Orange and Purple Twilight Rangers Alcohol Inks to create this vibrant background. The hollyhock stamp was stamped with black Versafine and clear embossing powder. The hollyhocks die-cut was cut from deep-pink cardstock. The layering of the die to the card is a little bit time consuming because she has used tiny foam squares, some of which needed to be cut to size.

Both the die and the stamp are from Impression Obsession. I really like how the companies are making dies and stamps that match well together.