Merry & Bright ACK Part 1

Today Mom & I started working on our Merry & Bright ACK (Artful Card Kit) from HOTP.  We first went through and divided the various elements into similar color schemes and then chose two of those for this first set of cards. 

Card #1:  First up is the turquoise snowflake set. For this card front the elements from the kit are the label, the frame, and the blue patterned paper.  I made a gate fold card - and used my score board to create an embossed pattern on the card fronts.  (This was to hide the fact that I made a mistake when scoring the gatefold card!)  The label is glued just to the left side of the card.  For the focal, I started with a piece of the background paper that had been glued to a different card front and then had this circle die cut out.  I stamped this deer (Small stamp from HOTP called Small Reindeer) twice - once on the background paper and once on white card stock.  After coloring in the harness elements, I fussy cut the reindeer & stars in her antlers and glued them to the background.  After adding the frame, I glued it just to the right side of the card.  To cover the fact that the frame and background paper were two separate pieces, I took a piece of card stock, glued it to the part that extended past the center of the card and fussy cut around it.

Inside:

I covered the inside with the background paper that was cut just a bit smaller so a frame of white shows around it.  Before gluing it down, I inked around the edges.  The rest of the elements are also directly from the kit - just punched or cut out and arranged as you see here.

Card #2:

Card number two is from the 2nd set of elements - this time the red and multi-colored snowflake patterns.  Unfortunately, today was a day of making mistakes and having to cover them up.  For this card, I wanted a few white snowflakes in the upper right corner.  I found some double stick Dazzles in snowflake shapes in my stash.  I covered these with white flocking.  However, the flocking didn't come out looking very white!  So I decided to add some whitish silver glitter paste on top of the flocking so they could be seen better.  This was fine until I somehow hit this with the envelope, smearing the paste all over the top of the card!  I added more of the paste to the top of the card to try to make it look intentional.  It still looked terrible, so I added red flower soft.  Of course, that now does not want to stay well.  At any rate, I did what I could, then added white snowflake confetti to finish the card.  Oh yes, I also have a little strip of the diagonal striped paper that I added near the top of the card front (cut from the paper that has stripes of most of the other papers on it).

Inside:

All elements on the inside are from the kit, except that the focal greeting was blank and I stamped the word "Celebrate" on it (from JustRite's Festive Poinsettia set).

Card #3:  

This card is back to the snowflake elements, though I added a few other items as well. As you can see, the background paper is more of the snowflake pattern used on the first card.  This card is the one I cut the circle from, intending to have an aperture card.  However, things didn't go as planned and I ended up covering the hole with this white glimmer paper circle that was cut and embossed using Spellbinder's Teardrop Circles die set.  I used more of the glimmer paper and the red and white striped paper (cut at an angle) to make the borders.  The rest of the elements are all die cuts or cut outs from the kit.

Inside:

Since I had decided to cover the center hole, I now had to cover it on the inside.  I used a Darice Snowflake Swirl embossing folder to emboss a piece which I inked before gluing it over the hole.  I wish I had just left the hole as it was initially, but . . . live & learn.  Anyway, I took the diagonal scrap I had cut off to get the strips for the front borders & placed it point down as you see here.  On top of that I added another cut out from the kit.  While I don't care for the embossed left side of the card that much, I DO like the sentiments that are on the front & inside of this card.  They bring a chuckle every time I look at them.

Card #4:

The last card I made using the mulit-colored snowflake pieces & more of the red border paper.  This time, after gluing the paper to the card front, I embossed it with the Cuttlebug Kitchen Weave embossing folder.  I added some dazzle borders to serve as strings that the ornaments are hanging from (and as you can see, I turned one of the snowflakes into an ornament.  The "Holly Jolly" is a cutout from the kit.

Inside:

For the inside, I used another strip cut from the all papers striped paper to get these borders.  A die cut and cut out from the kit complete the inside.  These elements were some of the ones I liked LEAST from the kit, so I'm really looking foward to seeing what I can make with the ones I like the most!