Christmas Cards! (In September)

Hello!  I wanted to share with you a few cards using this month's new Club Stamp and Die Set from The Stamps of Life!  It's Santa Claus!  Although it's still technically summertime, Christmas is right around the corner!  I love Christmastime.  I'm not one for going out and braving the stores during this crazy time (I do most of my Christmas shopping online), but I love the decorations, the smells, the sounds and the meaning of Christmas!  I'm one of those crazy people who will listen to Christmas music any time of the year if I'm having a rough day or feeling homesick.  Growing up in a large Italian and Slovenian family, Christmas was a fun week-long celebration!  So, I was pretty excited when these new set of stamps and dies came out.

"Santa2stamp" by The Stamps of Life

"Santa Dies" by The Stamps of Life

 
The dies this month are so versatile.  The designer, Stephanie Barnard, created them in such a way that you can "build" Santa without any coloring if you decided not to or if you wanted to make a card in a jiffy.  This makes it super easy for anybody to create great looking Christmas cards, tags etc without too much troubleshooting!

This first card that I created is a pop-up card!  For my square stitched frame, I combined the stitched square, square, and stitched ONLY square dies from the Stamps of Life.  For all of my cards, I used the "Ho Ho Ho Collection" patterned paper, also by The Stamps of Life.

For the inside of my card, I stamped, cut and colored my Christmas tree from the "trees4Christmas" stamp and die set.  The presents came from the "birthday4Cookie" stamp set.  You don't exactly need pop-up dies to create pop-up tabs, but I used the "everyday-pop-ups" by Lawn Fawn.

I also used the "wavy dies" set to create a separation between my patterned paper at the bottom of the card.  The "Merry Christmas" Die Cut also came from the Stamps of Life.

For this next card, aside from using this month's club stamp and die set as mentioned above, I used the Sizzix Playful Flip-its Card Die Set for my base.  I added some Christmas trees and some white ribbon for embellishment.  My "Christmas Wishes" sentiment came from the "ornaments4Christmas" stamp set by The Stamps of Life. 

I absolutely love shaker cards!  I decided to do a "snow theme" shaker card above.  I didn't have a window die that would fit, so I measured and drew light pencil lines for my window and used the smallest die from the stitched rounded rectangle STAX by My Favorite Things to cut out each panel.  For my "snow", I added some white/clear sequins and also Marshmallow Seed Beads by Pretty Pink Posh.  The base of my card was cut from the Sizzix Flowers/Sentiments Scalloped Edge Drop-ins die set. The sentiment came from this month's club stamp set, "santa2stamp" and was stamped on a stitched label, also by Pretty Pink Posh.

I just love these cute little Christmas stockings by The Stamps of Life!  I stamped and cut them using both the "stockings4Christmas" stamp set and the coordinating stocking dies.  I used Copic markers to color them and, (although you can't see it in the photo), I added sparkle embossing powder by Hero Arts to the top and bottom of the stockings and the white parts of Santa's hat.  For the base of my card, I used the Sizzix Friends Forever Step-ups Card Die Set.  I used the stocking die set to die cut some candy canes for the middle portions of my card.  I also used both the stitched oval  and oval dies to get a layered "label" on which to stamp my "Christmas Wishes" sentiment.

  
Lastly, I created another "flip-its" card.  Sweet and simple.  For the base of my card, I used the Sizzix Triple Fancy Frame Flip-its Card Die Set.  I also used the Sizzix Fancy Labels #4 Framelits Die Set to create a green frame around each of my sentiments.  For my sentiment, I used the "ornaments4Christmas" stamp set and simply masked off part of the "Ho Ho Ho" sentiment while stamping.  Lastly, I stamped, cut and colored a Christmas tree using the "trees4Christmas" stamp and die set.

Thanks so much for looking!  Feel free to leave any comments or questions!

Rachel