Well, here we are on the final day of 2022. My posting attempts were only slightly better than the previous years, but I'm going to work on that in 2023. I was, however, busy this fall creating a variety of Christmas cards. Last year with a all that was going on, it kept me to a minimum of cards. I had so many ideas that never got realized. So this year I intended to start in January and do a few each month and be all set come the fall. Well, that never happened, big surprise, but, I determined to get going and get some of these ideas out of my system and just got going whether I liked it or not. Eventually, I got into a swing and things got going.
We've had a lot of new people joining our church in the past two years and I wanted to make the newcomers feel welcome by having enough cards to get everybody. Normally, I choose one design and make multiples of that design, but this year I determined to make 10-20 of each design. That let me work in manageable batches and to get lots of different cards. Overall the theme on many is Joy. Many also included a nativity die cut. In 2023, I might try to get some done each month...but likely it will be a marathon come October!
Let's take a look at this year's cards.
This Joy die is an older die from Papertrey Ink. The pine is from The Greetery. This was the starting card the one I had to try to get out of my system. It may not be what I intended, at times a bit painful to get through, but it got me going. I used the outtakes from the joy to create tags.
I believe the Holly die cut is from Penny Black.
This was my next card using all dies from The Greetery.
Taylored Expressions Layered Stencil Quad set is one I began last year and never finished so it gave me a huge jumpstart being able to take 10 sheets of cardstock and stenciling 4 cards at a time. Forty cards in almost no time flat!
I was determined not to spend anymore money on dies or stamps this year, but this cover plate from Taylored Expressions made me break that resolution. They had some great examples, but I tried a few of my own color blends. This is one that will be used another year in a different finish.
Continuing to break my resolve was this fancy font die from Spellbinders. This is a lot more work and if I'd stopped to think about it, I may have passed it by. I played with this for a while before I decided to add a nativity silhouette from Sugar Peas Designs. The Postal Frames die is The Greetery.
Keeping with the postal frames die and a church die (from Simon Says Stamp) with a blended background mounted on a deep plum base.
Another card on the deep plum base, a postal stamp die cut in a pale green then a white layer with the snowflake cover plate from Lawn Fawn before I topped it with the Waffle Flower Joy die cut, and a sprinkling of tiny aqua snowflakes with a mini snowflake die from Taylored Expressions.
Now I took a turn into a Nordic Christmas theme courtesy of Taylored Expressions stamp and The Greetery layered Nordic die.
Another version of the TE stamp and Penny Black's Inspired die.
TE's sentiment stamp pairs nicely with an older snowflake die from Simon Says Stamp.
Paper Rose Snowflake borders on navy pearlized cardstock let me decide where I was going to place the snowflake border. The stitched edge is a nice finishing touch.
This wasn't a planned card, but somehow as I was playing around blending colors I had an idea to feature this older die Bethlehem frame from Poppy Dies. It's the only top-fold card I've made in a long time, but because of the texture in the cardstock I wanted to have the lines running vertically.
Last year I saw designer Laura Bassen make a couple of cards from this Waffle Flower Die. It wasn't exactly what I expected when it arrived, so I set it aside to play with at another time. This year I added strips of mirror cardstock in some pretty colors behind the opening. The cardstock are just layers of the new collection of greens from Michaels. I really loved the greens in this pack, a huge improvement over the other collection!
My first mini slimline Christmas card. Bethlehem Border from Taylored Expressions let me decide how much of border I wanted. I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest and thought the Waffle Flower stamps expressed exactly what I wanted. It's hard not to break into song when I see a partial song in a greeting!
A regular slimline card card was what was need for this Waffle Flower die. I had inspiration from another designer, but I was running out of time and needed something a little simpler and decide to try this out. As I worked with it I was struck by the focus and decided to take a little time to try one other card with this die. In this the tree shape disappears and it becomes a spotlight.
My blending faded a bit by the time I was shooting this. I tried to work lightly and in the end, probably too lightly. Again, one of the nativity dies (Sugar Peas Designs) is cut to fit the bottom half of this card.
There was one final card I needed to make and that was for some of the winners from my 12 Days of Christmas series of tips and ideas for scrapbooking with Mosaic Moments Grid System. This simple design fit perfectly for my Five Pines Designs brand. Taylored Expressions cover plate cut out the many trees I needed, a strip of buffalo cardstock on black finished off the cards for 2022.
...And so this post finishes off the year, with just an hour to go. If you've stayed with me this long, I thank you, and hope perhaps there will be more scrapbooking, some card making and overall lots of creative things to share with you in 2023. Please stop in again!
