CAS Christmas cards

I love the look of CAS (Clean And Simple) Christmas cards. In truth, making a batch of these cards still took a fair while - AND that was using ready die cut NOEL words!

It all began when I spotted a few designs for cards using the Sizzix Alterations 'NOEL' die in places such as Pinterest. Needless to say, the card I based this one on now won't show up when I search for it to give credit to the card maker, sigh. Anyhow, the search was on for the die itself and it's absolutely nowhere to be found at all, double sigh.

But, ready cut dies using that same die were popping up so in the end I threw caution to the winds and bought 24 ready die cut NOELs. All in white (I figured I could possibly colour some myself) and they are absolutely fabulous! I bought them from a really sweet lady. She has a good variety of die cuts for sale and they arrived really fast and beautifully packed as well. With a packet of free butterflies included as well :)

So, there I was with 24 die cuts to play with and I figured that the original design I spotted would be for the first batch of six cards:

I used:

- 5.75" x 5.75 square white card blank, side opening

- 5" x 5" square of white card, onto which I stuck a Sizzix Alterations NOEL die cut (you can see that it's a big and bold die cut, about 4.5" x 4.5" in size)

- I then backed the white panel with some of the 'Red Velvet' satin mirri card I was barking on about the other week (stocked by Joanna Sheen) - leaving just a narrow red border and layered it onto the card blank

- die cut the poinsettia using snippets of the same red velvet satin mirri card and also some dark green as well. The die I used is a lovely set of three different sized layers, made by Britannia Dies called 'Small Poinsettia' and sold by Joanna Sheen

- then layered the poinsettia together and added it to the card front, using Glossy Accents as a firm glue

- topped the centre of the poinsettia with a brushed gold Josy Rose nail head

Only then did I think to check if the card (plus insert and envelope) would slide through the postal gauge at standard letter rate. Whew - it does, it really would have been a bit galling otherwise having made a batch of six! That's one of the beauties of Josy Rose nail heads, they do add that something extra to a card whilst being only slightly domed - unlike a lot of gems I have here.

CAS Christmas March Challenge

Loll and Bonnie have started off a brilliant challenge called 'CAS Christmas'. They have a great Design Team and there's loads of inspiration for CAS Christmas cards - this month's theme is 'Holly' - a perfect choice!

But for some reason, even though we've recently had our fair share of snow here, I just couldn't summon up the enthusiasm for making Christmas cards until just the other day. Indeed, the monthly 'production target' is in danger of slipping unless I get cracking. So, some batch baking was called for and six of these little cards is the result, and I can play along in the CAS Christmas Challenge:

I used:

- 4" x 4" square white card blank

- square panel of silver mirri card just slightly smaller than the card front

- square panel of Neenah 'Desert Storm' card, cut very slightly smaller than the silver layer

- then die cut the Memory Box 'Cabrini Ornament' directly out of the 'Desert Storm' panel ready to inlay the details - and backed the aperture with medium strength double sided adhesive sheet. Hint, when working like this is pays to keep the piece of waxed paper you'll have peeled off to add the adhesive sheet - it can be used to cover and protect the front of the aperture area in between building up the inlays

- then die cut the ornament outline from silver mirri card, the holly leaves from a snippet of glossy green card, the berries and ornament itself were cut from snippets of XCut red and white adhesive glitter sheet

- assembled all the pieces and then added the image panel to the silver backing and then onto the card front

- it was just a bit too CAS so I die cut the 'noel' part of the Poppystamps 'Noel Snowflake' out of snippets of red XCut glitter sheet and added those to the top right hand corner of the card

- I didn't want to risk spoiling the fully assembled card by running it through the Cuttlebug so I just used the flat part of a bone folder to press firmly onto the die cut 'noel' - it worked a treat!

So that's the total pushed up to 37 Christmas cards - really should make a further 11 before the end of March to hit 12 per month but can't see that happening.