Christmas Frenzy!

WARNING: lots of photos!

I am knee deep in Christmas cards at present, proper ones. However, while my hand was repairing itself, I used the various free gift packs from various magazines to "assemble" cards - some of them are really, truly pretty (I must photograph them) - and gradually over the end of October and beginning of November and then in the 10 days since our return I have built up quite a stash - still need to make a few more, but nearly there! Here is a cross section........

Simple and a bit crooked!

Then I assembled a few from some sheets I have purchased, using commercial card blanks in most of these - and just adding stuff from the Christmas storage tub.....

Then I got a magazine with an embossing folder, and so I played with that, finding that winding the handle on the machine is possible if you do it carefully! I fussy cut the middle from a second piece of card also embossed, and then I just smeared ink around - it felt good! I then STAMPED the sentiment and got it pretty straight so that was another thing added to the list of THINGS I CAN DO - strangely, housework has not appeared on that list yet!

So, smearing ink was OK, so I had this small stencil freebie.......

That's how this one was created

Then I got another magazine and it had this big beautiful embossing folder in it, and the packaging inside had a a deer (just like the stamp that came with the set) and looked so pretty I couldn't throw it out so it got added to the mix, by embossing the sheet and then die cutting a sentiment to add.

I was managing the machine well so dug out some of the dies I have collected for Christmas and had a good time die cutting. This card emerged from that experiment.

When we went away, I knew I would be in the vicinity of one of my favourite shops in South Blackburn, and as I had often lusted after one of their classes, booked myself in to a Saturday morning Distressed Christmas session! I was a bit surprised how well I managed everything - I don't think anyone even knew I had a problem with my hands so that was a good sign!

This was one of the cards we made. 

Silver mesh

I came home and made these:

Gold glitter mesh - different TH Distress inks

Pink sparkly mesh and sparkly white mesh

Great play but too time consuming  to make too many when one has so much to do!

Then I decided to use the star dies I had, and firstly tried to replicate some cards I had seen on Pinterest - the dies were not quite big enough for me, so I ended up using the largest one and drawing around the outside of it to create the card base, and die cutting the paper for the inside. 

Again, too much time and too much load on my hands to fussy cut theses in any number.

I die cut these for tags though, and used a freebie paper pack from Bo Bunny to decorate them

 I then went to my SU stamp set Bright and Beautiful, and after surfing around on the web, I cased these two cards - wet embossed stars, die cuts and sequins. Pretty!

Sticking to this set, I made these as well - again CASed.

Gold card with white embossing, Very Vanilla card with gold embossing and gold sparkle. The background is SU Ivory card with stars embossed using the SU embossing folder - and the card blanks are from Regal Craft. 

I quickly ran out of gold ribbon and had to make a dash to the craft shop but they didn't really have what I wanted either, but I made do 

Love this heavy satin ribbon but I only had two pieces off a chocolate box!

I had to turn the card in the embossing folder to do the last bit on the bottom, hence the need for a ribbon, I discovered, as you get a small disruption at the join. All were finished off with pearl centres. I liked these so much I made 10 of them!

Well, that is all for the present - off to wrack the brain for something else - or go to Pinterest or similar for inspiration! This last set really is lovely though, so I might see if I can make something else with it.............