Christmas Card Club Challenge #7- Christmas Flowers.

Okay, so as well as losing a day last week, I now seem to have lost a complete week! I've just realised that I should have had this ready for yesterday.This fortnights challenge is set by Carol, who has chosen Christmas Flowers for us. To visit all the other ladies, there is a Christmas Card Club link in my side bar. My goto for Christmas Flowers is usually a Poinsettia die, and as I had a bunch of Tim Holtz MM die cuts on my desk, I've sort of cheated a bit and recreated a card I made for last Christmas.

This one is made on a 6" square card base, and after cutting out the MM die (Mixed Media Dies #1) from another sheet of white card, and trimming to size I backed it with some cream paper with gold marbling on. I bought this years ago at the NEC Hobbycrafts, came in huge A1 sheets, in a variety of colours. You could also just stamp some plain paper and use underneath. One thing I learned doing this - stamp and heat emboss your sentiment first, the heat gun tends to lift the DST on the back!
 The sentiment is by Phill Martin, from a set called Snowflake sentiments,and the Poinsettia is a die by La Crea, and is smaller than the Spellbinders one. It was cut from another past NEC purchase, a deep red leather effect paper, which makes a glorious flower. Centre was filled with Glossy Accents and seed beads. A small flourish added under the flower. The snowflake, added top left, is from a Sue Wilson set, and hides a dent in the cardstock from the MM die, 😀.
 This technique of backing the MM die cuts with patterned paper is being done to death I'm afraid, as I said, I have a whole pile on my desk I'm turning into an assortment of cards. But it lends itself so well to pretty much any reason for a card, you can change the mood/occasion just by the colour/style of paper you back it with. Especially good for those difficult Sympathy/ Condolence cards, as it's simple but elegant.

Quick and Easy Die cut Christmas Cards

These were really quick and easy. As I had a bunch of Poinsettia flowers left from the previous card, I wanted something to use a few up, and these cards took about 10 minutes each to make, so great if you need to batch make a lot.


The die is a Memory Box one, called Grand Merry Christmas.









The cutting area of the die itself measures 5 1/2" x 1 3/4"(140x25mm). Obviously, you can extend the length of the straight edge as much as you want to afterwards, with a craft knife & ruler. You can cut two from an A5 sheet of card, with some cardstock left over.

 It also let me stash bust a bit more of my Christmas backing paper stash too.

 The card bases I'd ordered from PDA Card & Paper, to mount the glitter tree panels from a while back. They measure 150mmx105mm. You can have them in Landscape or Portrait format.I'd needed the Portrait format for the last batch, these are the Landscape option.


So, first off was to cut some backing paper to cover the front of the card.


 I selected a few sheets, marked the dimensions on the back and cut them down. They're attached to the card front with DST. A tip here I saw a long time ago,for getting stuff stuck down straight- place your strips of DST, then peel back 2 pieces of the backing papers to about half way along.



 Now place the corner you've uncovered, and hold in place with one hand. Smooth it down, making sure all the edges are straight, then pull away the DST backing papers. Smooth down, then raise the opposite corner slightly to remove the other pieces.

All being well, you will have a straight placement.The only thing that can throw this off is if the card bases are not cut square, then you may need to trim.


Now to die cut the  Merry Christmas.

Place the die close to one edge of the cardstock, and hold it in place with some low tack tape, to keep it straight. Run through your machine of choice, and this is what you get.


 If you poke out the 'Christmas' letters into a tub, you have an element for another set of cards, always a bonus.

Continue the straight edge as needed for your card base with a knife and ruler.

Now cut the panel down to fit the scale of your card. Mine averaged just under 2 1/2"(60mm). At this point, decide how you want to attach to your blank. I added some with pop dots, and some flat with DST.

To finish just add a Poinsettia flower, and a flourish.
 Word of advice- don't die cut a load of Flourishes in advance to 'save time'. Trust me, it won't. No matter how carefully you lay them in a container, next time you go to get one, they will have magically entangled all the curly bits. It's quicker, and far less stressful, just to cut as you need, honestly.

Place the Flourish- the ones you haven't torn bits off, or thrown in the bin- where you want it to be, put a blob of silicone glue on the back of your Poinsettia, and place on top. The glue will hold it all, no need to glue the flourish separately.







And that is it. 10 minutes, including die cutting, from start to finished card.

 Another 7 cards for the Christmas Card stash box.

WOYWW #237

Yes, I missed another week, I know. We've been having odd nights off lately, to use up the last of our holiday hours from work (we get x number of hours over a year, as opposed to a set number of days, due to the shift patterns), plus after 10 years you get an extra 2 days a year, and we got to the end of November with the equivalent of almost a week to book off, and only 3 weeks in which to do it. Anyway, long story short (not really, but the thought was there), I get completely lost as to what day of the week it is anyway, and with nights off I was completely thrown. So, are you all nearly ready? Tree up? Lights & decorations? Pressies bought & wrapped? Cards made & sent? I'm so far ahead of myself this year, I think I may have been swapped by Bodysnatchers, lol.
 Over at The Stamping Ground, our lovely Fairy Godmother of Desks, Julia, is waiting to see what we've got, so, click the link and join in!





 I was trying out the die I bought at the NEC, the Le Creatif  Poinsttia.Its actually a really nice die, and makes a smashingly useful size of flower.

 Cool thing too, if cut out in different colours, it still works as a great flower, without necessarily looking like a Poinsettia. These are Black, White & Silver, a mix of pearl papers & vellums, with beaded centres.





 While mooching about in drawers, I came across a scrap of some dark red leather effect paper, quite thick, and thought it would make a really nice Poinsettia.


The texture of the paper works really well, and the colouring is perfect.

I cut 1 large, 2 medium and 2 small flowers to build them, but ended up only using 1 small one, as the paper is quite bulky.












Thats the camera setting, they aren't that bright!

 Here they are all layered up, I also got a couple of smaller ones, using up the layers I didn't include. This is closer to the true colour of them too. Really need to learn about my camera settings!




Visited B&Q at the weekend (Hubby needed some Laminate for the other room), and a smashing set of Christmas star lights jumped into my arms. Well, what are you to do in such a situation? They had to come home, and look great in my craft room window.

Another case of the camera getting the colour 'off'- they are more purple than they look here. Have a great Wednesday, will link & catch up later. Off to Tesco on the way home, to get most of our shopping. Working on the theory that it won't be TOO bad at 6.30am!