12 Days of Handmade Christmas Cards--Day 4

12 Days of Handmade Christmas Cards

Day 4

Continuing with the glitter paper theme, it's a crisp clean Christmas card with lots of sparkle and a merriment. 

The tree die is from the Beary Christmas--Cardmaking Set. 

Just on a whim, I thought you might get a kick out of this card throwback to 2009. This was the Christmas card I sent to family and friends that year. 😀

Until tomorrow.

--Sarah

CTMH Technique Blog Hop - Glitter is Glamorous

Merry Christmas, stamping friend! Welcome to the CTMH Technique Blog Hop for December featuring all things glitter! 

I know you enjoyed your stop at Belinda McLane's blog which then brought you here. 

My glittery project is a Christmas scrapbook page using three different sets of dies--the Silver and Gold Cardmaking set, the bow Die, and of course, the Block Alphabet--all cut from the red glitter paper. Surely the holidays and glittery paper are a match made in glitter heaven! 

My quick tip for this project is this--if you are not someone who prints your photos at home (like me), you can use a piece of scratch paper cut to the size that your photo will be to stand in, while you are working on your page. See that green piece of paper? That's the stand in for my photo on this layout. I just use a tiny bit of adhesive to secure it in place while I'm working. Then when I have the photo, it's easy to pop out the temporary paper and permanently attach the actual photo.

Above shows the work in progress, with the photo popped in. I used a 6x8 photo on this page--I'm loving this size right now. 

Here's the finished page. The patterned papers and the journaling card are all from the Beary Christmas Workshop kit. 

Close to my Heart offers glitter paper in red, black, silver, gold, white and Bashful pink. It's a sturdy weight but still easy to die cut.

You will notice that I added the loopy bow to each ornament. I simply trimmed the legs off the bow die cut and glued the simple bow to each ornament. 

Glitter paper is so festive--I hope you will give it a try soon on a scrapbook page! 

Your next stop on the hop is Cat Nowak's blog! 

Thanks for hopping with us today! Please feel free to leave a comment so I know you stopped by, telling me your favorite way to use glitter in your papercrafting. 

See the Silver and Gold Cardmaking Stamps and Dies here.

See the Red Glitter Paper here. 

Until next time,

Sarah

12 Days of Handmade Christmas Cards--Day 3

Day 3 finds us assembling a crisp and clean card using traditional colors of glitter paper and a grouping of three ornaments, each with a loopy bow. 

This die set is made to accompany the Silver and Gold suite of products...in a few days we will make use of the ball-shaped ornaments too. 

Until tomorrow,

--Sarah

12 Days of Handmade Christmas Cards--Day Two

Day Two 

A good bow can make everything more grand, I say! And an excellent sentiment stamp. 

Don't you agree? 

12 Days of Handmade Cards

It's Christmas time! I love Christmas and I must admit on of the reasons I am a card maker is for the joy of making Christmas cards! 

So let's do this!

12 Days of Handmade Christmas Cards--Day 1.

This top-folding card uses an awesome technique--paper tearing! It's so simple and when done with white-core cardstock, you get that cool white edge. I did a little free tearing on the leaves but punched the holly berries with a circle punch because it's a little more challenging to tear glitter paper. 

I'm warning you--there will be a stocking-full of glitter paper in this series as I am all wrapped up in the sparkliness this Christmas! 

If you happen to use Instagram, I am sharing this series there using the hashtag #12daysofhandmadechristmascards  If you are a card maker, feel free to use it as well. 

Until tomorrow, go and be glittery!

--Sarah

Crafting Christmas Cards

Some say Christmas cards have gone the way of the rotary phone and the turntable (just send an email or a Facebook post, they say) but I do still love to make and send them, so here we are. 

There's something magical about receiving a physical hand-crafted card in the mail box. Some things are just worth the effort to hold on to, don't you think? I do.

So here are a few of the Christmas cards I've crafted this year.

I hope you get to craft some Christmas things too! 

CTMH Technique Blog Hop - Thin Cuts Craze

So it's a Blog Hop for Close to my Heart Techniques. No surprise there! Welcome! This month we are featuring the Thin Cuts Craze!

I hope you enjoyed your visit to --- 

DEBI MCBAIN'S BLOG

My favorite set of Thin Cits dies from CTMH is the Block Alphabet! You can see them HERE! 

The awesome thing about this low-key font is that it's universal! There's really no situation that this Block Alphabet can't handle like a boss! But I know that you are here for the pictures, so let's get right to it! 

I'm participating in a Gratitude Challenge for the month of November. Before the month started, I selected the Falling for You workshop to be the main stash of embellishments for this entire project. It's an ongoing project but we are fifteen days in now and I'm really enjoying mixing some creating in with my writing. As I expected, working on this gratitude journal has made me a little more observant this month--a little more cognizant of all that I am grateful for. 

That Block Alphabet was used on the cover, as you can see. The journaling is happening inside, delineated by day. I pick a new topic each day. 

My tip for aligning die cut letters is this: when you think you might need to make adjustments after all the letters are on the project, don't stick them down completely at first. Leave them partially unstuck, as shown here. 

Adjustments are so much easier if you only have to pull up a small portion of the letter. Ask me how I learned this? ;)

Moving along...your next stop on the Thin Cuts Craze Hop is CAT NOWAK'S BLOG. ! I know that you will enjoy her work too.

I'll be posting more pictures of this project next Wednesday, so I hope you will drop by again. 

Thanks for stopping by!

--Sarah