HD A Cuddly Christmas - Peace and Joy

Even though the card you see above doesn't look much like a Christmas card, these cards were all made using materials from a 2016 Hunkydory Kit called A Cuddly Christmas - the set called Peace and Joy.  As you can see from the picture below, a lot had already been used from the set, so this was a "use it up" project.

All that was left from this set was two partial sheets of AS (Adoreable Scoreable printed card stock), and a mostly used up die cut sheet (just had a focal, border, 2 embellishments, and a sentiment left.  Obviously to make much use of this, I had to pull from my stash.  Here are the 6 cards I made from these materials:

As you can see, I made 3 Christmas cards, and 3 cards for other occasions (since I had already sent out my Christmas cards for this year I didn't figure they all needed to be Christmas!).

Below is a closer look at each card.

Card #1:

My first card made use of the focal that came with the set.  I pieced together AS from the set to create the left side of the card, and added a couple of sentiments (one from the set & one from a Hunkydory sentiment book).

Card #2:

It's a little difficult to tell from the picture, but the background is blue & snowy.  I used the green border to increase the size of the snowy AS enough to work for my card.  But, that meant this card needed to be a Christmas card.  I found these snowmen in my stash that were dressed in red and green - figured they would do nicely for a focal.

Card #3:

I had cut all my AS to create the backgrounds for most of my cards and had this strip of holly border left.  I decided to emboss the card front (Snowflake Swirls from Darice) and then add the strip at the bottom of the card.  I found a tag in my stash, added a stamped/embossed sentiment and some red Jewel Dazzles for holly berries, glued it all together & called it done - that is after I added a jaunty bow at the top of the tag.

Card #4:

Next up was a cut panel of AS that would make a good any-day background.  It's sort of a peachy color print.  I decided to use some of my die cuts to create a spray of flowers on the left side (Spellbinders Build-a-Wreath).  Next I matted the panel and added a die cut sentiment (Card Making Magic - 5x7 Card & Box die set).  I used a few dazzles from HOTP to decorate the corners and cut a narrow brown mat to complete this card.

Card #5:

I had a narrow panel of the peach AS that had a robin border.  I trimmed a peach piece to go below the robins & then added pieces of coppery Mirri board from Hunkydory to create borders top and bottom.  I added a white piece of lace from my stash, a HD sentiment from one of their sentiment books and finished it off with a white ribbon bow.  I thought I was finished at this point, but then decided to come back and add a focal.  The owls are variations of Karen Burniston's Feathered Animals & the branch they are sitting on came from Spellbinders Tropical Friends die set.

Card #6:

My final card is another made using a panel of the peach AS.  I inked the edges in black, then added a bunch of die cuts from Spellbinders Grand Tropical Flamingo and Tropical Friends die sets.  The last touch was a Hunkydory sentiment from one of their sentiment books.

Th - th - th - th - at's all folks!

HD A Cuddly Christmas - The Teddy Bear's Christmas

 

Hunkydory's A Cuddly Christmas set called The Teddy Bear's Christmas was only partially intact for creating this set of Christmas cards as you can see in the picture below:

 

As you can see, there was very little left - a partial sheet of AS (Adoreable Scoreable card stock) and a few remaining die cuts.  Because of the sparseness of the remainder of this set, I added some LB pages to create more focals and created 5 cards as you can see in the picture below:

 

Below is a close up of each card.

Card #1:

I started with the one remaining focal, placing it on a white card with embossed card front.  I added a greeting from a Hunkydory essential book of greetings.  I didn't take pictures of the inside, but the tag worked great with a border scrap on the inside.

Card #2:

I cut the AS into 4 pieces to use as backgrounds for more cards.  This time, I cut a LB page, matted it on gold and glued it in place.  I also added another sentiment from the essential book of greetings.

Card #3:

This time the AS piece had a border on it, but only covered about 2/3 of the card.  I then fussy cut the focal from another LB sheet.  To create the look of something on which this focal needed to sit, I die cut a fancy border piece to add it.

Card #4:

 

This one started with a similar background piece to the last one, but I added a cut piece of another LB page at the top.  To this, I added a gold die cut border strip, "hung" a bit of a border sticker to hold another sentiment piece.  The card was completed with fussy cutting the bird and adding it in place.

Card #5:

This time I have another full size piece of AS for the background, I inked the edges before adding it to the card blank.  I cut another LB piece and inked the edges.  I die cut the border below this - and added a mat. The sentiment was the last die cut from this HD set.

A Cuddly Christmas - There's Snow-One Quite Like You!

This time I have cards from the Hunkydory A Cuddly Christmas collection - the set called There's Snow-One Quite Like You!   Here is what the set looked like when I started:

As is normal with a standard (not deco) set, this set had a sheet of die cuts and two sheets of AS (adoreable scoreable card stock).  To this, I added things from my stash to make a total of 8 cards:

While I'm only showing the card fronts here, they ARE finished on the inside - mostly with scraps, but some die cuts were used there as well.  Below is a closer look at each card front.

Card #1:

For this first one, I just used a piece of the AS for a backdrop and added a focal image and sentiment - easy peasy!

Card #2:

 

This one was also pretty straight forward - a piece of the AS (I inked the edges in gold) along with a border strip (split behind the sentiment because it wasn't quite long enough) and a sentiment piece.

Card #3:

 

I chose to make this one a birthday card because I didn't think the artwork was particularly Christmasy - even with the colored lights.  The background was created from pieces, so I added the ribbon to hide the join - then added the sentiment (from a Hunkydory Essential Book of Sentiments).

 

Card #4:

 

This time I made a fold-back card because I was dealing with leftover pieces of the AS.  I used the wider strip on the folded back card front and the smaller strip on the right hand side - along with a border strip.  As you can see, I enhanced the small reindeer square die cut by matting and framing it to create a stronger focal.  I then added the sentiment to the lower right.

Card #5:

 

For the cards made with the blue AS, I cut most of it to create four A2 panels.  This gave me two pieces that were just the blue print and two with borders on them.  It also left me with a strip of striped AS that I used later.  For this one, I just took one of the panels that had no border on it, inked the edges, and added the focal and sentiment.  

 

Card #6:

 

This card uses the other plain blue panel, but I used the cut off strip top and bottom - along with scrap from the die cut sheet - to create borders.  Once again I needed to enhance the focal square - which I did by cutting a piece of scrap from the die cut sheet that gave me the frame shape.  There were a few places where I used a gold Sharpie to "fill in" missing gold foil.  The sentiment added to the bottom right completed the card.

Card #7:

 

By this point I didn't have much left beyond the two bordered pieces of AS - both of which had gold Sharpie drawn around the edges.  I DID have a long border strip, so I took part of that to add a bit more interest to the border.  I also had the sentiment.  I went looking through my stash and found this little elf-like creature that I decided would work for a focal.

 

Card #8:

For this last one, I added the remaining border piece at the top - then found a printed greeting in my stash and mounted it on gold before adding to the border.  For a focal, I found this printed and fussy cut person sledding and added it to the lower right as you can see.

HD Meadow Farm - Walkies

Today I have another batch of cards that were made from a Hunkydory set.  The kit was called Meadow Farm Designer Deco-Large, and the specific set was Walkies.  Here's a look at the set I started with:

Deco large sets usually consist of one and a half sheets of die cut pieces (many of which are just parts of things in weird shapes - designed to layer on top of the main picture on the half-sheet), and one piece of printed Adoreable Scoreable card stock (AS).  This one was no exception as you can see in the picture above.  To this, I added stuff from my stash to create several cards.  I always challenge myself to see how many cards I can get from a set like this that is designed to create two cards (one with the layered pieces and one from the AS).  This time I got 7 cards from these materials:

 

As usual, I started by choosing the pieces I thought would work for focals.  That determined how many cards I'd make.  Often I make cards that are 5 x 7 in size, but this time they are all A2 sized.  

Now for a closer look at these cards and how I made them.

Card #1:

Usually I start by making the easy ones, but not this time.  This first card consists of one of the layoring pieces on a small piece of sky AS.  I aligned the piece right along the lower edge of the sky.  Then I took a border piece of the AS and a border die cut and taped them one on top of the other.  The space between these two pieces needed to be filled in with little scenery die cuts (which then had to be trimmed to align properly before gluing everything to the card front.  I used three more die cut pieces from the set to complete this card - 2 corner pieces and a sentiment piece.

Card #2:

Then I decided to make a couple that were fairly straight forward.  This one was cut to 4 1/8" wide, then a piece was cut out near the top and the top border taped to the rest, giving me a piece that was 4 1/8" by 5 3/8" with borders top and bottom.  I added a small bit of border sticker to serve as a "hanger" to hang the die cut sentiment (from the set).

Card #2:

Next up is another piece of AS - cut in a similar way as the last one, but horizontally.  I added the dog - which was a die cut piece.  However, to get his leaf covered foot to align with other leaves, I needed to use a craft knife to slit around the pink flowers so his front feet could be tucked behind them.  I finished with another die cut sentiment from the set.

Card #4:

This one is a bit unusual!  I had all these dog head pieces and really didn't want to use them as layers on my cards - so I came up with the idea of putting them all in a big basket (basket made using Stampendous Pop-up Kitties stamp and dies).  After getting them all situated in the basket, I glued the whole to white card stock and fussy cut around to form a white mat (so they would stand out from the background better.  The background paper, by the way, was a scrap from some old HOTP paper.  Before gluing the paper to the card front, I wrapped it with a ribbon to create a border that would hold my sentiment.  The sentiment is one from Sassy's LLC.  I inked the edge of it with maroon ink.

Card #5:

This one is a fold-back card.  I only had a narrow piece of the AS left and decided a fold-back card would make good use of it.  I added the die cut focal - gluing it just to the left fold-back part, then added some die cut corners on the other side.  A star-shaped greeting from a Hunkydory sentiment book completed this card (just glued to the focal so the card will still open).

Card #6:

This one started with a piece of marbled blue card stock cut just smaller than the card front.  To this, I added a top border using part of the AS border and a die cut border strip.  Then I created the bottom part by putting the dog die cut in place, then filling in with misc landscape pieces.  Finally, I trimmed all those pieces to the original piece and added a layered Sassy's LLC sentiment.

Card #7:

This one again started with a dog piece with rounded bottom - as most of them were.  I found a cloud-scape post card in my stash and decided it would be great for the card front.  This was a bit trickier than the last one because I couldn't just glue additional landscape pieces and then trim - I had to trim to fit as I went so they would fit within the border.  Before gluing the panel to the card front, I ran a piece of ribbon around it for a border.  After everything was glued down, I found another Sassy's LLC sentiment - rectangular this time.  After inking the edges, I glued it in place on the border ribbon.

SO, there I have SEVEN cards from one of these sets.  That may be a record for me!

November 2024 Swaps

Again for November's swaps, I have a regular card swap, the digi-swap, and a couple of materials swaps.  The card above is the card I made for the regular card swap.  I actually made it partly with leftovers from the materials I gathered for my material's swap - which you'll see below.  At any rate, the patterned paper is from HOTP Masculine SaraPapers Scrapbooking Kit.  The colored card stock is from my stash.  The focal was die cut from two sets of dies - Spellbinders Gnome Drive Holiday, and Karen Burniston's Feathered Animals.

Digi-Swap:

This card uses 3 different digital patterned papers.  I adapted the layout from a sketch challenge.  As you can see, I used the blue pattern as a mat for the floral and the pink dotted for both the background and mat for the sentiment (which I added with foam tape).

Inside:

Scraps from the same paper were used to create a border for the inside.

Then I used the remaining scraps to make a 2nd card:

The sentiment is a download from Sassy's LLC - matted with the pink patterned paper top and bottom - then the light pink mat.

Materials's Swap - Mine:

This swap was particularly challenging for me as the focus was "Buttons".  I seldom use real buttons on a card as they are harder to mail, but the rules said we could used stamped or embossed buttons.  The narrow strip above, though hard to see, has buttons embossed on it.  The two patterned papers are again from HOTP Masculine SaraPapers Scrapbooking Kit. In addition, I have a reddish glimmer paper and some white card stock in addition to a card base.  I had hoped to add some embellishments, but couldn't figure out a way to add something to the card I made and the rules state that I have to use everything I send.  Here's the card I made from these materials.

As you can see, I made a center step card with the diamond patterned papers on the lower edge and the sides.  The paisley patterned paper was cut to create a shirt shape using a Spellbinders set called Athletic Apparel from the Game Day collection.  For the inside of the color, I used the same paisley pattern, but lightened it with white ink.  I simply used white card stock for the collar.  The red glimmer paper background was embossed using a Spellbinders MBossability folder called Quilted Delight.  The "You" is die cut using a die from another Spellbinders set called Half Slimline Bracket.  The stamped second part of the greeting was from a HOTP stamp set called You Greetings and each end was punched with a Stampin' Up punch. I inked the embossed buttons and punched them out with a standard paper punch.  I glued these on the shirt collar and on either side of the stamped sentiment as you can see.

Materials's Swap - Partner's Materials:

This was a really nice set of masculine materials - the Hunkydory Pop-a-Topper Gentlemen's Pick and misc paper and card stock - along with buttons and ribbon.  I made two cards from this set of materials since I didn't want to add blue to the first one.

Card #1:

I made a reverse center step card in orange and black for the first card.  I used an orange sharpie on the brownish buttons to try to bring out that color.  Bottom border was 3/4" and side panels were 1.5" wide.

Inside:

The border was created with scraps of the orange paper and scraps from the die cut sheet - along with one of the die cut sentiments.

Card #2:

This card is again a reverse center step card, and used the rest of the die cut pieces and the ribbon.

Inside:

 Inside I used most of the remaining scraps inside.

HD Winter Wildlife of Britain - Badger & Mole

Winter Wildlife of Britain is the title of the Hunkydory kit I used to make these cards.  The specific set is called Badger and Mole, and looked like this:

There was a sheet of die cuts and two sheets of Adorable Scoreable (printed coordinating card stock).  From this - and a bit of stuff from my stash, I made 5 cards and 2 tags:

Next up is a closer look at each.

Card #1:

This first card was pretty simple.  A panel of AS, inked around the edges, formed the backdrop for the focal and greeting  die cuts.  I simply added a red ribbon border with bow to complete the card.

Card #2:

Though it looks more elaborate, this card started the same way as the last - a piece of inked card stock for a background and a die cut focal.  This time I added a piece of gold card stock wrapped with two different ribbons to create a border on the focal.  In addition to the sentiment die cut I added to this border, I found a sentiment tag in my stash (Hunkydory Little Book of Essential Sentiments) - to which I added a bit of gold ribbon.

Card #3:

Here my focal was cut from the AS.  I matted it on gold and added a gold strip for border - then a sentiment die cut from the set.

Card #4:

This card was based from another piece of AS.  I added some scrap from the die cut sheet to create a border at the top - to which I added the sentiment.  The left side felt very empty, so I added a gold die cut piece (Card Making Magic's A5 Box Kit).  The final touch was a white ribbon bow from my stash.

Card #5:

By this time, I had more AS but no more focals.  I created one using a Little Book Page (LB of Perfect Planet), trimming it down to fit inside a light green die cut mat (Spellbinders Decorative Labels Eight).

Tags:

By now there was just a little bit of AS left - from which I created two tags.  I used punches to shape these tags, and a couple little pieces from my stash as focals.  The little gold embossed piece at the bottom of the right one was cut from a Spellbinders die cut (Antique Corner).  I added washi tape strips and gold ribbon to complete the tag.