Magazine Monday!

Can you believe this is the final Monday of January, 2011? This month just seems to have flown by.

How many years have you found yourself scrambling at the last minute to get your Christmas cards made and ready to mail? Or ::: gasp ::: caving in to sending store bought cards. If you are an avid card maker, you know how painful that last ditch effort to wish everyone merry is for you.

On Splitcoaststampers, I belong to a thread called the Christmas Card Challenge 2011 (CCC11). The concept is to have all of our Christmas cards ready to mail by the end of November, rather than waiting until the last minute to get them finished. You determine how many cards you need to mail and divide it by 11. That is your target number of cards to make each month, January through November. By December 1st your handmade cards are finished, ready to mail and you can stress over something else about the holiday. (You know you will. We all do!)

My target goal per month is to make 10-12. Technically I only need 10 per month but I seem to have started doing things in sets of 12 lately so I’m adjusting my goal. This month I pulled an idea from the December 2007 issue of Stamp and Scrap Magazine. This card is designed by Sandie Bachand. I wish I could have found a blog or website for Sandie. She does lovely work. For this particular article she chose to showcase the fundamentals of 4 stamping techniques – embossing, masking, direct-to-paper and watermark inking. I did a modified version of her MASKING technique.

Sandie’s card LO is close to mine. her matted JOY is more centered, with 3 red rhinestones in a column below it (near the edge of the printed mat) , and an Antique Gold Snowflake charm.

We both used an A2 card for our base. However, I liked positioning my JOY mat lower – eliminating the rhinestones at the bottom. I didn’t have a Cuttle Bug embossing frame so I chose to just cut the center out with my Sizzix Md Square sizzlit, but keep the deckle edge. It still gave it a ‘framed’ look.

Recipe:

Tools- Sizzix Md. Square Sizzlit, Fiskars Deckle

CS- GP White, SU Wild Wassabi

Stamp- Village Arts Press (VAP)

Ink- VersaMark

Embossing Powder- Stamp n Stuff Red Tinsel and Gold Tinsel

Accessories- Folk Art Metallic Inca Gold acrylic paint

So January cards are done. Now to figure out what I’m doing for February. It’s a short month so imagine how fast it will pass. ::: smile :::

So, are you thinking Christmas now?

Creative Blessings!