More Holiday House

Holiday House #1: Here's a Christmas house - made using dies from Elizabeth Craft Designs Holiday House.  It took me most of the day to make it (which I suspect is why I like to have things made ahead rather than doing it as I make a card/scrapbook page).  The original die was designed to make the center section.  I chose to cut extras of the middle piece around the door to add on either side of the house to make it bigger. 

I inked various parts of the house to create some texture.  Then I colored the door frame, heart, and lights with red.  I colored the light strings and window frames with silver Sharpie, backing the windows with pieces colored with light yellow to effect light coming through them.  I covered the door frame, heart, and eaves with a clear glitter sheet and fussy cut around it.  I thought the Dazzles leaves worked great to form some small bushes & a Christmas tree in the window. Wreath is suede paper - as is the greenery in the window boxes.  Little red Dazzles complete those.  

Holiday House #2:  

This one was much more basic, as you can see.  I used the clear sticker on eaves, windows, and heart.  It's surprising, but all purple (except the roof/gingerbread) was colored with the same marker - just depended whether or not it was going over top of the clear glitter sticker.    Looking at these, I realize that both need door handles.  I probably won't come back to show the updated photo, but I will go and fix that.

2024 August Swaps

Swap card (above): "Tropical" is the theme for this month's swap card.  I decided to use Spellbinders Coastal Escape View die set from their Windows with a View collection.  These are such pretty dies with such a variety and were used to cut all the die cuts on the card front and the inside.  The white shell was a sticker from my stash, the sentiment was Hunkydory.  The background was from a wallpaper sample book.  I thought it gave the look of the inside of a ship's cabin looking out at the sea. I used Distress and Distress Oxide inks to color the die cuts and the background.  I also used a coordinating stencil called Background Scapes to try to create the look of waves in the water - though I must admit it DOES make better clouds than waves. :)

Inside:

It's a bit hard to tell from the picture, but the inside "portal" was cut from copper mirri.  The background was done the same as for the card front, and the coral, sea weed, and fish were from the same die cut set.  The inside sentiment was from one of my Crafter's Companion Compendium stamp sets - the page called Celebrate.

Materials Swap - Book related:

Here's the kit I created:

This was a challenging one for me!  It was supposed to be book related and it took me longer than I thought it should have to come up with a good idea for that.  Since characters from a book were an option, I decided to go with a nativity scene.  I sent a die cut nativity scene (Holy Night from Divinity Designs) and die cut greeting (Moonstone's A Christmas Miracle).  To that I added a card blank, white card stock, silver card stock, dark blue patterned paper, and a silver-edged white ribbon.

And here's what I made with it:

It's a bit hard to see in the picture because of reflected light off the silver.  I started by matting the blue with silver and gluing it to the card front so there was a bit of white around it.  Then I cut a hole in the center and glued the cut-out piece to the inside of the card.  I bordered the hole with silver and white frmaes, then cut the nativity piece apart, leaving the stable scene intact.  Next, I used a circle die to round the bottom to fit inside the hole.  I finished by adding the remaining figures as you see, a ribbon bow, and the sentiment (which says "A Christmas Miracle").

Inside:

I cut a silver circular frame that was larger than the hole so there would be no chance of seeing it from the outside.  I then used ink to cover the white between the blue circle and the silver frame.  After gluing the nativity scene in place, the only other thing was to add a strip of the blue at the bottom for a border.

Here's the kit my partner created:

It's a sheet from the HD Pop a Topper set called Ladies Choice and a few papers from her stash that coordinate with it. And here's what I made:

 

I had quite a challenge figuring out how I wanted to lay out this card.   I finally decided on the above with the sentiment on foam tape.

Inside:

As you can see, I went with more of the same for the inside.

Digi-Swap:

This card started with the three patterns and focal that I printed from a digital download.  I started by fussy cutting the bird focal and gluing it to a white mat.  I then added it to a blue dotted mat.  My background was the blue check - with a smaller yellow serving as a larger mat for the focal & sentiment.  I added a sneaky little kitty face & paws (Stampendous Pop-Up Kitties) - kitty on wobble spring, paws on foam tape.  The greeting is fuzzy alphabet stickers.

Inside:

As you can see, I used scraps to create a border on the inside.  The embellishment is from Sassy's LLC and says "A little birdy told me you weren't feeling well . . . so I ate it."

Flower Patch Pots

Today's cards come from a card making kit I was gifted - called Flower Patch Pots - made by Katy Sue Designs.  It came with 8 sets - 4 designs, two of each.  I shared with my Mom, so will only be making four.  The kit is designed to make shaped cards that look like a flower pot. 

Card #1: You can see the first one in the picture above.  The flowers are actually designed to be layered up papier tole style, but I find I prefer to glue them in such a way as to make a fuller looking set of flowers.  That is how I have flowers that seemingly cascade down the pot.  The center top pulls out of the flower pot pocket giving you a place to write your message (and showing you how I added the "cascading" flowers:

This card also has a stand on the back for display purposes.

When I get concept cards like these, I find that I seldom want to make them the way they were designed.  I usually make the first as directed to see what I think of it, then move on to do my own thing for the rest.   With this one, I may come back and re-do it as I have done for the rest of them!

Card #2:                                                                            

I decided I would much rather use these flower pots as focals on 5 x 7 cards.  After creating the pot base as directed, I decided I didn't care for the color of the pot, so cut a piece of orange gingham paper to cover it.  I used a piece of burnt orange card stock for the background - bordered by copper Jewel Border Dazzles from HOTP.  I took a scrap of this copper material and added it to the bottom edge of the pot's upper edge, fussy cutting to match.  Then I added a green ribbon around the whole & tied a bow before gluing it down.  Toward the top of the insert, I glued flowers and greeting from the kit (see picture below).  I also added a few roses by the bow and toward the bottom of the pot.

The flowers still pull out of the pot with a space for a private message (or maybe a gift card?), but the card also opens up:

I used scraps from the front to make a border for the inside of the card.

Card #3:

I created card #3 in a similar manner.  This time I used a strip of green patterned paper for the background - bordered by two narrow strips of yellow gingham - both papers from my stash.  I added a narrow white border sticker to create demarcation between the two.  After creating the pot as normal, I added the yellow border strip (that came in the kit) toward the bottom of the pot.  I also added a white border sticker along the lower edge of the pot's upper edge.  Flowers were arranged to create a much fuller bouquet.  The single flowers I used toward the bottom of the pot didn't have leaves, so I added some from my stash.

Inside:

Again I used scraps to make a border on the inside - then fussy cut flowers from the illustrations to decorate it.  The next picture shows the card front with the flowers pulled out of the pot.

Card #4:

This time I used a purple embossed glimmer paper for the background, along with a doily mat - inked with silver ink.  Embossed silver borders decorate the pot & form a border at the top.  The lip of the pot also has a couple of layers of ribbon, with a touch of that same ribbon peeking out from the sentiment (from the kit).  I used a silver sharpie to color over the gold edges of the sentiment so it coordinated better with the rest.

Card #1 RE-MAKE:

I DID decide to go back and modify the original flower pot to create a card similar to the others.  A marbled light pink forms the background with a piece of white doily at the bottom.  I added a couple of "fallen blossoms" to the lower left corner to cover a spot where the doily got messed up!  Then I needed to balance it with something in the upper right corner.  I used gold Jewel Dazzles covered with punched pieces from a lavender flower for that. I was fortunate to have those additional flowers available - an extra flower sheet had been included in my kit - probably stuck together because they were so thin.  Finally, I covered the original sentiment with another one - this time in pink - using foam tape for dimension.

KCC#10

I got a "new to me" set of Christmas 6 x 6 papers with coordinating card stock and die cuts from HOTP.  I wanted to use them for a KCC, but was tired of KCC15 and decided to go back to one I downloaded but never made up - KCC10.  Here's a picture of all 15 cards:

Next up is a closer look at each.

KCC #15 plus - from 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" mat stack

Today I'm starting another set of KCC15 cards using turquoise/green/black papers from an old DCWV mat stack called All Dressed Up.  

I chose to make a 16th card using a full panel from an extra DCWV page (see above).  I added a sentiment (Sassy's LLC) that was matted on a green glitzy paper - framed with some dazzles borders.  I added a bird cut out from my stash (which I matted on black) - and some black flowers attached to a green branch formed from the vein of a die cut leaf.

Here's a picture of all 15 KCC cards:

And now for a closer look at each: