For the past couple of years, I’ve participated in a Christmas Stampathon group on Facebook. Last year I got sidetracked and didn’t complete all the challenges. Big mistake. Huge. I didn’t have all my holiday tags and cards ready to go. So, I recommitted this year and I’ll share the cards with you. For the most part, I use my scraps and retired products for these challenges which also helps clear the craft room. Never a bad thing. You can join the group online, it’s run by a wonderful demo who is super supportive and friendly, or you can take your inspiration here and play along behind the scenes.
The CASE Image and My Cards
To CASE a card, I like to look at the elements. This card has a color base, a bit of texture on the white background, five strips of color, a central die-cut image, a sentiment, and some gems. I stayed pretty literal to this equation and played more with style.
Rustic Moose
In the first one, I went rustic. I used the Birch background with Cinnamon Cider ink on the Very Vanilla base to create the texture. And I gave our Merry Moose a bright red scarf to bring out some of the color in the DSP strips. The copper medallion, heat embossed sentiment, and mirror embellishments added a bit of holiday sparkle.
Monochromatic Sleigh
The Cherry Cobbler sleigh card is nearly monochromatic. I used an embossing folder on the Very Vanilla card stock to add the texture. The sleigh and the sentiment are heat embossed in gold and I used a few Gold Glitter enamel dots for the sparkle. One thing I wish I had done differently was to use the opposite side of the embossed snowflake. It would have made the card assembly easier.
Sparkly Tree
The third card uses a background from a summer Paper Pumpkin kit. I added a mix of silver foil DSP and matte grays. The Shaded Spruce tree is from the In the Woods dies. I added a bit of white/glitter heat embossing to the edges of the branches. I did a combination on the sentiment of silver heat embossing and die-cutting. The “Holidays” is actually two die cuts—Silver foil and Shaded Spruce—layered on top of each other. I went all out with gems, a star and silver pearls on the tree, snowflakes on the background. I call this my More is More card.
Clean and Simple
Which meant my last card had to be a less is more. I got out some very retired Washi tape. Added a stamped ornament from the recent Christmas Gleaming set, and some gold braid and glitter enamel dots. The sentiment is stamped right on the card base in Cherry Cobbler.
This is a great layout no matter what the occasion. I could see creating a super fun birthday card for example.
Hope you are inspired to create something today. Happy crafting.