A Very Merry Christmas - Winter on the Canal - Challenge!

As the title suggests, we're back to working on the A Very Merry Christmas Deco large set I bought with the additional little book and papers & inserts.  As I've done in the past, this is 1/2 of that set.  But I made it more interesting for myself this time by challenging my Mom to see what she could create with the other half.  We were to get as many cards as possible & strive for variety.  

This set of nine cards is what I did with my half (and a bit of my stash).  All of them are finished on the inside, though I did not take pictures of the insides - except where it shows like the inside of this easel card. The focal on this card uses one of the pieces that was intended to stack for the "deco" or paper tole style focal.  I mounted it on paper from the papers & inserts to give it the purplish background and matted it with silver tag board.  A strip of scraps forms the border on the inside where one of the greetings from the kit is raised on foam tape to hold the easel open.

This picture does NOT do this card justice.  It's very hard to see from the picture, but this one has several layers, including a raised frame around it (cut and embossed using a nesting spellbinder's set of dies). It, too, started with one of the pieces that had been intended as a layer for the focal - this time put against a green snowy background that is the flip side of the purple in the last one.  It was then layered with several of the deco pieces - each on foam tape.  The star greeting (from the Essential book) was added flush to the frame, but with foam under part of it so it was level. 

This is the third card I got using the deco pieces (one of just the boat went into the inside of one of these cards).  This was the base focal piece and looks so pretty with all of the silver highlights on it.  The background is one of the insert papers from the "papers & inserts" pack - I cut it a little smaller than the card & inked the edges of it before gluing in place.  The silver glitter ribbon is from my stash, and the greeting is from the Essential book. 

I LOVE the way this purple one turned out.  It uses the "leftovers" of punching out the base deco piece to get the oval ring & triangle shapes.   The main picture is the border of one of the "Papers & Inserts" papers.  The corner pieces are from the kit & are put on foam tape for dimension.  Violet glimmer paper was embossed & serves as the background.  I added a glittery ribbon from my stash & a couple of greetings from the Essential book.

These next three focals are from the coordinating "Little Book".  For this first, I used a green gingham paper from my stash for the background & to "enlarge" the greeting from the little book.  I cut 2 ovals from silver tag board using Spellbinder's dies.  Since I wanted these silver mats to have a narrower border than the dies would normally have, I traced the inside of the die & fussy cut the ovals - once from insert paper, and once from a picture from the little book.  I also backed the greeting with the silver tag board.

Next up is a 4" x 8 1/2" card that just fits inside a business sized envelope.  I could have made this a card that you see through to the inside, but that's not what I did.  I just die cut the oval from the papers and inserts piece that would form the background for my card and put the picture from the little book behind it.  After wrapping it with a ribbon border (from my stash), I adhered this to the card leaving a narrow border of white on either end.  The sentiment is from the Essential book.  I didn't feel there was enough definition around the picture, so added a Dazzle border to help make the focal pop.

This last little book focal was cut in thirds before being mounted on silver tag board.  I embossed a white panel for the front of the card & wrapped it with wide red ribbon before adding the focal pieces.  A greeting from the Essential book completes the front of this card.

By this point, I had used all the pictures from 1/2 of the deco kit, little book & one of the papers & inserts set.  But I still had card stock and paper left over, along with a border strip.  I didn't have a large enough piece for the front of this card, but pieced the background together & covered the join with the border strip.  I matted the whole with silver tag board before turning my attention to the focal.  This was made by layering a large silver "cut and fold" snowflake (Spellbinder's die) with a smaller white snowflake (Paper Artist die from HOTP), before adding the greeting from the Essential book.

At this point I only had scraps left - but realized I could piece together this center step card with them - mounting the oval piece (center piece cut from one of the earlier cards) on a piece of silver tag board.  I used snowflake Dazzles to decorate the card & added another greeting from the Essential book.  Those little books of Essential Christmas greetings seem quite expensive, but they sure help out for a lot of these cards!!!!

Okay, that's 9 more cards from just 1/2 of the deco large set (with 1/2 of the coordinating little book & one of the coordinating papers & inserts sets).  That brings the grand total of cards from this half to 66 - with two more sets to go.