Holy Night ... Merry Christmas

This will be my last Christmas card for 2020.

A very Merry Christmas to you all. May the blessings of Christmas be yours ... Peace, hope, love & joy.

Thank you for all your support and encouragement during this year.

Rejoice ... Mixing 3 Sets

Our regular stamping group followed my guest challenge at Creblablablog. We each had to make the same card for each of the group and send them anonymously, then we tried to guess who sent which card. It was fun.

My card used the options of :

• image : star, 
• colour : platinum and 
• embossing : embossing powder

I used elements from 2 different stamps sets, and 1 die set :

• Mary & Joseph from Stampin' Up Night in Bethlehem
• Bethlehem from Paper Smooches A Blessed Christmas
• The sand dunes were cut with silhouette - I made my own shapes especially to match the flow of the curve at the bottom of Bethlehem.
• The single star on the front from Paper Smooches A Blessed Christmas, the group of stars from Stampin' Up Night in Bethlehem
• The die cuts inside are from Concord & 9th Holy Night dies
• Sentiment from Stampin' Up Night in Bethlehem

A close up of the front

The inside

I added a tea light to put inside and this is with it switched on.

Close ups of the inside and trying to catch the platinum embossing

12 Days of Christmas

I've made another set of small gifts for the 12 Days of Christmas for a friend who needs a little cheering up.

I think this Ellen Hutson set is so delightful. I keep it simple by adding patterned paper and a simple colour palette. This year I went with kraft and red, with touches of white.

Here's a closeup of 3 of the tags ...

Here they are more in order of numbers.

Have you ever read or listened to the wonderfully humorous book "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by John Julius Norwich. You can go and listen HERE.

My entry to ...

... Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge : Christmas Critters.

Christmas Name Place Cards

We had our Book Club Christmas Dinner last week. My friend and fellow stamper, Bronwyn, had volunteered to make the name place cards. She designed the cards using the Ellen Hutson Bookworm lady. I helped a little by printing names on cardstock before die cutting the tags, and colouring the ladies.

She attached the apple so they could hang from the wine glasses.

Each of us added our little gifts around the place setting.

Since Bronwyn had gone with the book theme, I had to put my chocolate in a little "book" box. I was inspired by Darcy Miller's little Book Favors. She did provide a PDF to print and make your own, but they were not the right size for my little chocolate so I made my own.

Here's my place setting with all the goodies ... we were so spoilt!

Our beautiful table.

My entry for ...

... The Card Concept : Christmas tree or decorations

Matchbook Gifts

I had bought the Altenew Mini Starry Flower stamp set for my stamping friends and wanted a fun wrapping. I spotted a few matchbook designs on Pinterest and thought, what a great idea.

So I measured my stamp set and calculated the size I needed.  To decorate, I thought the best thing was my new Altenew poinsettia die set since the gift was from Altenew too.

I made a little pocket so that the stamp set just slipped in.

Here's the close-up.

You can see the shimmer on the metallic cardstock. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp - Tiny Words Christmas.

I adjusted the measurements to take a small hand cream too.

My entry to ...

... The Flower Challenge : Add Embellishments. I used enamel accents and liquid pearls.

... Global Design Project : Winter/Holiday

... Die Cut Divas Challenge : Anything Goes

Guest Designer

I was invited to join in the Marathon of Cards (En route vers 2021) challenge by le Creablablablog which is running until 3 January. For the 11th challenge, I came up with this theme :

 Or in English ...

I made 4 cards. For the first : Star, silver, embossing folder ...

The front panel was stamped and coloured with copics, then added 2 red strips vertically.
I added silver stars and the banner with sentiment. Doodled a few black dots to give a flow to the stars.

The silver cardstock was embossed with the 3-D embossing folder.

For the second : Bird, Gold, Embossing folder.
I die cut the rings out of the front white panel. Pass the front panel with snow embossing folder. I then die cut the same rings out of gold and inlaid them to where the white ones would have been.
Punch the bird and branch and pop up on foam.
Stamp and emboss the sentiment.

For the third : Tree & Star, Platinum, Embossing powder.

Die cut the houses, tree and merry square. Use a Versamark pen to make snow marks on the tree and ink up the merry square with Versamark pad, then emboss with platinum embossing powder. 
Add Stickles for snow on the ground. Punch stars. Stamp Christmas in red Versafine ink.

For the fourth : Tree & Bird, Silver, Embossing paste.

Die cut the 3 circles from front panel. Use the tiny dots stencil and apply white embossing paste in a flow pattern ... from top left moving down to right and then down the center.
Stamp, colour and cut the images. I used Copics to colour.
Stamp sentiment and emboss in Silver. Tie silver string. Mount front panel and and pop up the images.

Pop along and join in this challenge, or any of the previous 10.  You have until January 3rd to submit your card.

I will also enter these to ...

... Die Cut Divas : Anything Goes

... Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge : Let it Snow

... AAA Cards : Made in Minutes

... The Paper Players : Theme

Wreath Wishes

I decided to ink up the Altenew Wonderful Wreath stencil for the first time. I mixed the greens - using distress inks : Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn & Lucky Clover.

I paired the stencil with the wonderful bold & funky "merry" from Winnie & Walter. I also die cut a foam one to make it pop more.

You can see the dimension with the angle shot.

I did hesitate about adding gloss accents to the berries, but decided not to do it and keep it simple.

My entry to ...

... Global Design Project #269 

... NBUS #20

... Inkspirational #227