Die-cut inlay Christmas Cards

Hello,

So I've been neglectful again, my bad.  I'm still working out a new lifestyle and this blog has really slipped down the list of priorities.  Anyway, I'm back now and hopefully *fingers crossed* I keep it up this time.

It is now November so it's time for Christmas again.  This year I've started off the festivities with a set of sparkly die-cut inlay cards.  Initially I created two water colour background pieces for two cards but ended up making four cards.

The first card with a complete die-cut inlay

Materials used:

• Card bases, two white A2 sized, one purple and one white 10.5cm x 10.5cm.
• White linen 240gsm card (Trophee), pearlised paper (Creativ), sliver and white glitter paper.
• Distress mini ink pads in seedless preserves, salty ocean and picked raspberry.
• Pearl-ex powder.
• Silver embossing powder (Ranger) and embossing ink (Versamark).
• 'Merry Christmas' stamp.
• Snowflake die (Couture Creations).
• A selection of self-adhesive pearls and gems.

The second card with a partial die-cut inlay

I began by making the two background pieces with the distress ink, water and pearl-ex powder.  Once they were dry I ran them through my Cuttlebug with the snowflake die reserving all the small pieces that were cut out.  Both the smaller 10.5cm x 10.5cm cards have the water coloured die-cut snowflakes while the two bigger cards have glitter paper die cuts.

The fist smaller card

The partial die-cut inlay card has just the glitter die-cut inlaid with pearlised paper behind the top half, while the fully inlaid card also has the small pieces from inside the snowflake adhered back into place (though two pieces have annoyingly fallen out somehow).  The sentiments on both of these cards were embossed in silver and gems were added to both the snowflakes.

The second of the smaller cards

For the two smaller square cards, only the water coloured die-cuts with gems/pearls are on the front.  For the first card I added more of the distress inks + water to the card base so when I layered the pearlised paper over it there was a border that matched the snowflake.  The second card has a purple card base as the snowflake is mostly purple in colour.

These cards are likely to be the most 'wintery' Christmas cards I will make, as it is summer at Christmas here in NZ.  I tend to make cards that reflect that or don't suggest any particular season.  I just have a strong connection between summer and Christmas (don't hate me, it's just super unlikely that it will be cold here in December).

Till next time,

Stacey