The wonderful sticker selection that is available can spruce up any card in short order. I love these hologram flowers from Ecstasy Crafts. There are 192 assorted flowers on one sheet of stickers. It is so easy to add colour with any permanent marker (Sharpie, Copics, Spectum Noir). In the card below, we have die-cut a framed circle and added an Impression Obsession branch to hold the flowers. If you look through your stash, I guarantee that you will find a branch or a scroll that will work well as a base for these tiny flowers. The card was made from the printed purple cardstock shown. Once embossed, we sanded the raised scrolls which allowed the white reverse side to show through. This is a technique to consider when you have printed paper or solid coloured paper with a white background. It can create quite an effective pattern with the white showing through.

These are the Tags and More dies from Elizabeth Crafts. This is a very large format to make accordion cards, or just a large front tag. In the first sample below, we have used kit #3 - Leaves, and die cut three different lengths of tag. The kits have florals and teardrop and photo-corners that can be used as hinges or decorative corners. One nice thing about these dies is they are only cutting the tops of your tags, so the length of the tag is at your discretion.
In the second sample, they've used three different tag tops to create the trifold.

 



This is another sample from the show using the same sized tags for a simple open card. They have used Elizabeth Crafts peel-offs to create the lovely butterfly and wording.

The sets offer an amazing amount of versatility and endless combinations for creating new masterpieces.

Both of these cards are great examples of the deer stencil from Magenta. This template is so easy to use with just a finger dauber and any one of your favourite brown inks. The card below was made using the tree dies that you see from Frantic Stamper, and the beautiful snowflake background stamp from Magenta. I love the precise artwork on this stamp and with Judikins white embossing powder, you will keep the fine detail.

On the inside of the card, you can see the hidden trunks of the tree die-cuts, as well as the beautiful lounging deer die-cut. Don't forget to add some glitter to your hills for that wintery finishing touch. This would make a great winter birthday card as well as a Christmas card.

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.