Another four Christmas cards - yay!

Happy dance here as my Christmas card making target total is up to date - for now and I did sort of enjoy making these four cards after such a loss of mojo. I'd been told to take it easy for a couple of days last week - so I spent the time quietly crafting ................. and left the ironing leering at me from the laundry basket.

I made four of the same design but changed the backing paper as I was using up small LOTV snippets - so there are two of each exactly the same:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank, tent style
 
- a piece of white card stock, die cut using the MFT 'Stitched Cover-up Companion - Diagonal' die

- then I backed the white panels with snippets of LOTV patterned paper - holly print and tartan/plaid from the (sadly discontinued) 'Classic Christmas' paper pad

- added a layer of fun foam, cut just slightly smaller than the panel to the back

- die cut holly leaves and berries, using snippets of plain paper from the LOTV pad (best way to get a good match for the red and green). The dies I used were holly leaves from the Dees Distinctively 'Wreath Builder' set and the berries are from the Poppy Stamps 'Stitched Holly Leaves and Berries set'. The only reason I mixed the two sets was because I wanted very slightly larger holly leaves 

- used the holly leaves and berries as a guide to position the sentiment in place, using the Misti of course. The sentiment is from the Inkylicious 'Seasons Greetings' sentiment set and I used Memento 'Tuxedo Black ink

- glued the foam backed panel onto the card front then added the holly leaves and a berry - using Collall All Purpose glue in a Woodware ultra fine glue applicator

It was interesting stamping the sentiment onto the card panel which was already backed with fun foam - I left the black pad in the Misti - but the magnets held well and the stamping came out crisp.

One really useful tip when using the Misti - when you've positioned your stamp and it's attached to the lid it's a real help to pop a full pad of Post-Its underneath the opened out lid (underneath the stamp is a good place of course) before you begin to ink your stamp up. The thickness of the Post-It pad supports the flipped back lid and also helps with an even covering of ink. Goodness know where I spotted that idea but I've always done it and find it works really well. I think I'd cry if those hinges ever snapped!

Of course, adding the fun foam to the card panel gives it a good 'lift' from the card base which looks better in some ways. Sigh, it also takes the card up into Large Letter size. I have a postal gauge here and it's such a help checking card sizes. I hesitating for a nano second - then decided to still use the foam anyhow. Threw caution to the wind as they say :)

Just added this - GUESS WHAT! LOTV now have some Christmas background papers to download and print for yourself. Three of my very favourite sets are in the collection so far - including the papers I used for this card which are my favourite set of all time!  I only found them when searching for some images I wanted - result - woo, hoo!! Happy dance here :)

To be honest, I'm NOT a printer of papers but was delighted to find what I though were some a long lost designs :)