My Cardmaking Gallery

The twenty-first card in my 25 Holiday Cards Challenge came from Jennifer Buck’s design. I just changed the colors around to fit the Designer Series Paper I had. Here are the details on how I made it in My Digital Studio:

• Background: Old Olive behind Christmas Cheer—Pattern 1
• Large Square Punch: Holly Berry Bouquet—8 with a 1 pt mat in Old Olive, with Christmas Jingle—Stitched square
• Horizontal Bar: Holiday Harmony II—2 with a 1 pt mat in Old Olive behind Very Vanilla
• Star: Homemade paper* (of Whisper White with Lucida Calligraphy, 24 pt., in Cherrry Cobbler) with a 1 pt mat in Cherry Cobbler
• Embellishment: Grosgrain Bow in Cherry Cobbler with Hand Selected Embellishments—Star, both with drop shadows
• Sentiment: Heard from the Heart—Sentiment 3 in Cherry Cobbler

*You can download and use the Happy Holiday paper using the same basic instructions that I posted for the homemade glitter paper. Please do not sell it, but share freely as you like.

The twentieth card in my 25 Holiday Cards Challenge started as one of the simple snowman staring up at the sky cards—but then it got really complicated. I wondered what else someone looking down at that snowman might see, so I created an overhead view of trees and a little girl with a sled plus some snowflakes beginning to fall. In some ways it was a complicated card, but the components are fairly simple.

Here are the details on how I made it in My Digital Studio:

• Background: Candy Cane Lane—Pattern 1, Opacity at 40%
• Trees: Stacked and rotated Star Punches and Flower Punches, in a variety of sizes, in Garden Green and Wild Wasabi
• Snowman:
  • Body: Stacked Circle Punches in Whisper White
  • Hat: Square Punches in Basic Black with a band in Bashful Blue, and Holly from the Jolly Bingo Bits
  • Scarf: Frostwood Lodge—Pattern 9
  • Buttons & Eyes: Brads in Basic Black
  • Nose: Petite Pennant Punch in Only Orange
  • Arms: All in the Family—left arm
• Little Girl:
  • Shoes: Oval Punch in Basic Black
  • Pants: Circle Punch in Night of Navy
  • Coat: Circle Punch in Baja Breeze with Word Window Punch for sleeves
  • Face: Oval Punch of Blush Blossom with All in the Family—head 10
  • Hands: Oval Punches of Blush Blossom
  • Hat: Oval Punch in Real Red (masked with rectangle of Blush Blossom at the bottom), and Word Window and Circle Punch in Whisper White for the trim
• Sled:
  • Tag Punch in Frostwood Lodge—Pattern 3
  • Long, thin rectangle punches in Sahara Sand to create the look of slats.
  • Baker’s Twine – White knot to simulate the rope to pull the sled
• Snowflakes: Various embellishments from the Christmas Cheer – snowflake set
• Sentiment: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” typed in Arial, 32 pt.

My card for this week’s Stampin’ Queens Sketch Challenge (SQSC17) is the eighteenth card in my 25 Holiday Cards Challenge. Here’s the original sketch:

At first I wasn’t sure what to do with this layout. It seemed almost too simple to me. As I thought about it longer though, I imagined a fireplace in the squares in the center. I tried some other ideas, but once I had thought of the fireplace, nothing else seemed right. Here’s my version of the card:

I ended up taking some liberties with the layout. The basic shapes are there, but I broke up the top center square to make my idea work properly. I had to add some decorations to the top of my make-shift mantle, which is outside the original design, but otherwise, I think the elements are all there and all the same. Here’s the breakdown on the elements:

• Background: Rectangle punches of Frostwood Lodge—3 on top and Crumb Cake across the bottom
• Wide Horizontal Rectangle: Frostwood Lodge—4
• Top Rectangle:
  • Pieced rectangles of Frostwood Lodge—3 on top for the mantle
  • Pieced rectangles of Cherry Cobbler for the bricks on a Very Vanilla rectangle (for the mortar)
• Fire:
  • Logs: Word Window Punch in Soft Suede, Early Espresso, and Chocolate Chip
  • Fire:
    • Boho Blossoms Large Flower Punch in Pumpkin Pie (very back)
    • Custom punch created from the Sunny Days embellishment in Pumpkin Pie and Summer Sun
• Stockings: Stocking Punch in either Garden Green or Whisper White with a Basic Gray Mat, and then topped with Stitched Stockings—Socks 1,2,3, and 4 in the opposite color
• Decorations on the Mantle:
  • Holly & Jolly Embellishments—Trees
  • Jolly Bingo Bits—Candle in Whisper White with a circle punch of Summer Sun behind
  • Christmas Jingle—Berries 2 on the candle holder
• 3 Presents:
  • Jolly Bingo Bits—Gift in Garden Green with a Square Punch of Whisper White behind
  • Merry Winter—Gift in Certainly Celery with a Square Punch of Whisper White behind, and a Grosgrain Knot in Certainly Celery on top
  • Holiday Blitz—Gift in Night of Navy with a Square Punch of Whisper White behind
• Brads: Cherry Cobbler
• Sentiment:
  • Hugs & Wishes—Large Warm Wishes in Cherry Cobbler
  • “for a happy holiday” typed in Arial, 14 pt, in Cherry Cobbler

The twelfth card in my 25 Holiday Cards Challenge also came from the Fiskars page Piecing Together the Holidays. The second project on that page is a gift decoration make with a star stencil and a stencil for the letter Y. I decided to try to accomplish something similar in My Digital Studio.

I only have one set of letter punches, and the Y was too wide to work for this card. I decided to play with other letters from the set, and I liked these three the most. They use essentially the same process:

1. Punch a star in your contrast color.
2. Punch a second star in the background color, resize it smaller, and then align the center and middle of the two stars. Now you have a star that appears to have an open center.
3. Layer the letter punches in the gaps between the star points
4. Cover the center with a punch and button.
5. Add some drop shadows.
6. Group the elements, and rotate a bit to vary the look.

Here are the details on the card:

• Background: Candy Cane Lane—Pattern 1
• Contrast Color for Snowflakes: Homemade white glitter paper 
• Punches: Star, Timeless Type Junior Letters—J and V, Timeless Type Junior Numbers—!, and Boho Blossoms (for the center)
• Embellishment: Baja Breeze Button Bouquet—button3
• Sentiment: Typed in the font Arial Black, 22 pt, colored Night of Navy.

The tenth card in my 25 Holiday Cards Challenge came from the Fiskars page Piecing Together the Holidays. I loved all the projects on this page and decided to try them all. This one may have been the most challenging. The Fiskars tree was made using a flower petal stencil. The closest thing to the right shape in My Digital Studio is the Left and Right Leaf in the Flowers group of the Sunny Days embellishments.

The challenge was that I couldn’t change the colors to vary the layers of the tree. I followed the instructions that Tami Shadler shared for making a custom punch and turned the Left Leaf, Right Leaf, and Stem into custom punches. It took a bit of trial and error (lots of error), but once I had the punch, the rest was easy.

I did use a custom color for the darker green in the tree. None of the Stampin’ Up colors was different enough to look right to me. You can set your own custom colors by using the RGB tab in the Choose Color box.

Here are the details on the card:

• Background: Frosty Day II—1
• Rectangle: Pool Party with a Mat in Soft Suede, set to 8, with a drop shadow
• Tree: Custom punch created from the Sunny Days embellishment, alternating between Kiwi Kiss and a custom color (R: 187, G: 157, B: 55). Stem is also a custom punch in Frostwood Lodge—3.
• Decorations: Brads in Pool Party, Melon Mambo, and Very Vanilla. Star Punch in Crushed Curry Villa with a second, smaller Star Punch in Crushed Curry
• Sentiment: Season of Cheer – Happy Holidays 1, with a drop shadow