Christmas Card Round Up

There it is.  The pile of this year's Christmas cards.  Thank goodness for the Jingle Belles keeping me on track throughout the year so I only had a few to make this month.

I dipped into my box of duplicates and scraps and cobbled some cards together.  These birds and snowflake wreaths found a home.  One on some patterned paper and the other on a stamped background.

Extras of these little houses and die cut trees paired up on some die cut panels with the little sentiment.  (Those buffalo plaid card bases bought a couple years ago on clearance have come in handy also.)

This one is really cobbled together but it's among one of my favorites.  I found this index card in my stash that had the lines of washi tape across it and I must have been practice punching those stars for another project on it and trimmed it up to be a background to the die cut patterned trees in the scrap box.  I sponged on some blue ink above the tape and then cut a piece of yellow card stock to give those punched stars some shine.  Peace is handwritten in gold gel pen on the blue card base.  

These two used an embossed panel that had Peace on Earth already stamped on it.  The nativity scene and the dove were in the scrap box leftover from a few years back.

The pieces of these cards (I made 6) took me way back.  The background, snowman, birds, and even the torn paper snow were extras leftover from swaps that I made when I attended my first regional stamping workshop.  (And I still have a few more of those snowmen and birds believe it or not.)  This wasn't the exact duplicate of that swap  but it came together pretty easy.  I just added the glitter paper diecut snowflake spray in the corner.  

The image on this card was stamped onto kraft card stock and colored with my Prismacolor pencils.  There is a little sparkle on the package ribbons which prompted me to put it on the gold card base (another clearance purchase from the past).  The sentiment was stamped and embossed in gold - "I just want them to remember YOU - the greatest Gift".  I did a few of these also.

This card started with a die cut you'll see in pieces further down.  After I assembled them, I found this background paper in my stash and chose two different colors for the card bases.  I also did them in 2 sizes so I could use those background scraps accordingly.

Here is the motif unassembled minus the white pieces for the letters.  You may not be able to see that I used 3 colors of green paper for the little branches and leaves that are simply glued over their place on the background.

And lastly (I think), Rachel asked me to make a card for her school secretary with blue trees and there's a little message about being blue and dealing with grief on the inside.  The poor woman's son was murdered this year and the holidays will be hard I'm sure.  

I'll have to get that one in the mail to her today so she gets it in time before school ends for the holidays.  I made a couple of fumbles with getting my cards out.  I decided to order my postage stamps on line and usually they come within a day, but I guess they can't keep up with their orders because I'm having to wait longer than expected.  Also, I very rarely include pictures with my cards, but I wanted to send a print of our family picture from the wedding to a few of my cousins who weren't there, but they won't come in until the 21st and I really didn't want to wait that long to get them out.  Decisions!  

Now to find my labels so the envelopes will be ready when the stamps get here!