Everyone is doing Christmas cards at the moment. The new Seasonal Stampin' Up! catalogue is out and there are some amazing stamp sets, dies and punches in it. If you've got children, grandchildren or are just young at heart, there are some marvellously cute ideas with gingerbread men, reindeer, Santa Claus and even dinky little 3D houses! Loads of Halloween stuff too if that is something you like.
But today, I'm showing a few 'alternative' Christmas cards. Alternative in that they are not the usual colours you expect for Christmas and there's not a Christmas tree in sight!
These cards are suitable for all types - even those whose faith doesn't traditionally celebrate Christmas, but who still want to share in the excitement and general feeling of goodwill to each other.
For the first card, I chose Basic Grey card stock, quite a dark, charcoal grey - and pasted a piece of grey wood grain patterned paper from the Little Foyxy paper stack on top.
Next I assembled the sentiment motif. I silver-embossed a greeting from the Stitched with Cheer stamp set onto a scrap of Whisper White card. I glued this at an angle onto a slightly larger piece of red foil card and decorated the top left hand corner with two small holly leaves and some berries cut from green and red foil card. Stampin' Up! have a great punch for these which would have saved time, but I don't have it yet so I had to make do with something else in the meantime.
I tied a piece of silvery twine around the front of the card vertically, and then using foam dimensionals, I positioned the sentiment on top, making sure the I left a channel free for the twine.
And that was that, except for stamping a few snowflakes on the inside. A good card suitable for either sex, workmates - basically anyone! And very quick too.
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The next card is wonderfully textured like a thick Aran sweater. You will have seen vases and mugs with a knitted texture and cushions made with very thick yarn, etc in the shops and SU are very tuned in to current trends, so it's obvious that cards will reflect the fashion too.
The base card is cut from Crumb Cake card stock, layered with a piece of Sahara Sand card that has been run through a Big Shot machine with the Cable Knit embossing folder. This is an extra deep folder because it creates such a deep impression in the card. It's really gorgeous and a folder everyone will want when they see the results in the flesh. Photos don't really do it justice - especially mine!
As in the last card, I assembled a sentiment motif using Chocolate Chip card stock, layered with Very Vanilla card which had previously been stamped using the Fairisle knitting stamp from Stitched with Cheer set in Soft Suede ink. I did this to emphasise the 'knitted' look which is so trendy at the moment.
I punched out a circle of gold foil card with the 3.5cm punch and another in Chocolate Chip, which I heat embossed with gold first. The sentiment seemed particularly apt - "have a cosy season!"
This time I cut the holly leaves out in gold to add to the richness and just the berries were cut in red foil to provide an accent.
Thick Very Vanilla Baker's Twine was tied around the card (actually before the knitted texture was stuck down) to add to the general Aran knitted look, but you could easily substitute gold cord or something suitable
Inside, a few snowflakes again and we're done!
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I might be pushing it a bit with the last card - black, white and copper - but why not!
Jet black base card was layered with startling Whisper White card stock that had previously been run through the Big Shot with a dotted texture embossing folder, to give a snowball-like texture. This particular folder has been retired but you could easily use the current Softly Falling folder to get the same effect.
On top of this I have layered a beautiful piece of vellum which has been printed with fine black snowflakes. Again, this is stock from the recent clearance rack sale but you could print your own vellum easily with a fine snowflake stamp.
The sentiment I have chosen means something to everyone regardless of faith, and again is part of the Stitched with Cheer stamp set. I have embossed this in copper, together with two tiny stars from the same set, on Whisper White card and cut it out with one of the dies from the Lots of Labels framelits.
I mounted the sentiment on a piece of beautiful copper foil card (so gorgeous, it has to be seen) which I have hand cut just slightly larger then the sentiment tag.
My cheat tip for doing this is to lay the framelit used for the sentiment onto the back of the foil card and to trace round the outside shape with a pencil. This is then much easier to fussy cut with an equal border surrounding the white tag. This set of framelits does have many sizes of this shape but I only wanted a narrow border so that it fitted the small card I was making.
The tag was then mounted with foam pads and everything positioned and glued into place. I used a small knot of copper coloured cord to embellish the card, stuck down with a heavy duty glue dot. ( I cheated and bought this cord in Hobbycraft. Shh, don't tell anyone!)
Inside, I have pasted a square of white paper so that the message can be seen easily when written, and I've added a couple of snowflakes to link everything together.
Well, I hope you like my "alternative" Christmas cards, or should I say "Seasonal" cards, and I will be doing some more obvious Christmas cards in the weeks to come.
Remember to sign up for my emails as I shall be drawing a name at random at Christmas and sending one lucky person some SU goodies to play with.
Thanks for stopping by.
Jane
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