Catching up on Christmas cards

Sigh, I've slipped on my '12 per month Christmas card target', so the other day I set to and made a batch of six identical cards. I know, boring for some people but once the 'production line' is set up it really is a time saver in the long run.

The plan was for 'simple' - yet it ended up with a good few steps to get there! This is one I made:

I used:

- 4" x 5.5" forest green card blank, tent style

- piece of white card stock, trimmed to an eight of an inch smaller all round than the card blank

- then I drew a fine line right across, three quarters of an inch from the top of the piece of white card (using a soft pencil) for placement of the window die I was going to use next

- die cut the window aperture out of the white panel using MFT's 'Rectangle Peek-a-boo Window' die and rubbed out the pencil line

- used a sentiment from the Personal Impression 'Many Greetings' stamp set and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink to stamp 'Merry Christmas' on the white panel. As I was making six at once, this stage was a breeze using the Misti!

- backed the aperture with a small piece of white card - I wanted the extra feature of the 'window' but still wanted the whole panel to be white :)

- die cut the mittens using little Stick-It backed snippets of SU's 'Real Red' card stock and a sweet Frantic Stamper 'Hanging Mittens' die

- peeled off the Stick-It backing and stuck the mittens in place in the window area

- adhered the white panel to the card front with a sandwich of white fun foam to add dimension

- something was missing and I messed about for ages trying options. In the end I plumped for Josy Rose shiny silver star hot fix nail heads just to 'lift' the mittens a bit

Ha! My in-house critic just couldn't 'get' the mittens on a Christmas card (he's so behind with trends at times, bit like me really) but at least he didn't ask if they belonged to the Lone Ranger!

Snow flakes would have been better but my punches, dies and little sequins are all too large - or so I thought! I could possibly have used the 'fall out' from my Martha Stewart snowflake border punch - but of course that only occurred to me when it was too late. Those hot fix nail heads can't be prised off - not that I tried. So, Lone Ranger mittens it is - note to self for next time though!

Almost half way through the month and certainly need to get a wiggle on to start my 12 Christmas cards for April - for some reason, much less enthusiasm this year and if it becomes a chore then I'd rather not play.

Speaking of chores and playing - I can't say often enough just how much easier it is running the Snippets Playground. The easing of pressure is phenomenal and I'm so grateful you all went along with the new format.

Oooer, almost forgot, I'd like to enter this card into a couple of challenges run by Hazel. I used to play every single week but have been a bit naughty lately:

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge 328 and

Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra for April 2017

Two of my favourite challenges, no pressure and you can always just go for the 'Anything goes' option as well! Hazel works really hard on these challenges so it would be lovely if you could join in - when you're in the mood for making Christmas cards of course!