Tis The Season

Hi Friends and fellow crafters! I hope everyone stopping by the blog over the next few weeks likes Christmas Cards! Something tells me I'll be posting alot  of cards! Maybe I should just change the name of my blog to Col's Christmas Cards Corner! LOL!

The Details:

Cricut E-2 and Gypsy

Cricut Cartdridges- Sophie and unknown

Vagabond

Cuttle Embossing Folders: Swiss Dots and Snowflakes

Nestability Die Cut

Lil Of The Valley Stamp

Close To My Heart: My Acrylix Celebration stamps

Copics

Prismas

Prima Flowers

Stickles

Martha Stewart Silver glitter

I was clearing off the mess table after making my Christmas Tree the other day and found this image stamped and ready to go between a couple of piles of papers. I adore Lili Of The Valley stamps and have many of these sweet characters in my stamp collection. This one is called Angel Gabriel and can be found here along with 99 other wonderful Christmas Stamps. I must have had a plan for this image because it was already cut with a Nestability. I matted the image with a piece of Christmas paper from My Minds Eye, Wonderful Winter Glittered Paper. It had been so long since I used my Nestabilities that it took me a couple of passes through the Vagabond before I realized that I needed to put a cardboard shim under the die cut! I love the shape of that particular die cut, but the largest nestability I have for it was the mat on the image, so I pulled out my Gypsy and opened the Cricut Circle Cartridge, Sophie up. I found almost exactly the same shape was on my cartridge! This became the whole card. I cut a card at 11 and 1/2 inches, then created 2 more mats. I realized that I will never have to use a nestability again! It's almost impossible to tell which is the Nestability and which is the Cricut Sophie cut.
As I was looking at Angel Gabriel, I started to think that it has been ages since I've colored with my Prisma Pencils. I  discovered Copics shortly after buying a set of Prismas, and was blinded by my love of the markers. LOL! I started coloring the little shepherd boy with the Prismas but didn't have a good skin color, so I pulled out a couple of copics. I love the little shepherd, he reminds me of Linus with his blanket wrapped around his head in A Charlie Brown Christmas. When I went to color the sweet little Angel, I couldn't find the colors I had in mind, so I went with BG0000, BG000, BG02 and BG10 to color her. I used Platinum Stickles on her halo and some Diamond stickles on the snow, the stars and the Angel's wings. The image ended up becoming a hybrid of Primas and Copics. I think it turned out cute.

I ran the layers through the Vagabond using my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots and Snowflakes folders to add some texture to the card, and finished it off with some Prima Roses that I had in my stash. I was tempted to break out my Flower Shoppe cartridge for this card, but I really want to use up some of the hundreds of Prima flowers I have. I think they look pretty.

For the inside of the card, I found a couple of white stars on the table, so I glittered them with MS Silver glitter. I layered them in an alternate pattern and popped them up for some height. I stamped the sentiment, and added some Aqua Stickles around the edges of the Cricut cut. I love the stamp set that came along with my Close To My Heart Art Philosophy Cartridge. My wonderful online crafting friend, Belinda, is a CTMH consultant, so if you are still haven't ordered this cartridge, stop at her CTMH blog, here and see what it's all about! Belinda provides great customer service and is also a talented crafter! The stamps are a dream to use, too!

So many cards, so little time! Next year, I will start my Christmas card creating in January!
Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Happy Crafting!

Colleen