One of my Christmas cards for 2013

I decided that I'd try to make some of my Christmas cards this year. I had bought a Christmas ornament stamp earlier this year from Stamper's Best and decided to make a few cards using it.

I first stamped the stamp in black ink on white cardstock.

After that, I colored the stamps in in many stages using some watercolor pencils but mostly the Prismacolor metallic colored pencils I have. I varied the colors of the different areas so that every card wouldn't be exactly the same.

I then cut around the stamp, leaving a thin boarder of white, since there was no way I could trim all the white. I then mounted the trimmed stamp on cards made from half a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 red, green, or blue cardstock. I wanted those colors because they always remind me of Christmas. The result is fairly simple but I think they're striking. I may either buy a Christmas saying stamp from Stamper's Best  or have my husband, who has much better handwriting than I do, write "Merry Christmas" along the bottom of the cards.

Winter and Christmas cards

I don't have a lot of these to post right now, since I used my stash last Christmas since we had just moved (December 9th) and I hadn't had time to make any (painting our new house took FOREVER, the last week in October and the whole month of November). But here are the few I have:

This one was fun to make. I stamped the polar bear on white card stock and cut him out. I then stamped my versamark pad on white card stock, covered it with holographic embossing powder mixed with clear embossing powder (I've found the holographic doesn't work well by itself) and heat embossed it. I then tore snowbanks out of the now sparkly white card stock. I cut along the polar bear's head so he could be resting his head on the front snow bank and layered everything on gray cardstock (I have a few in a light blue also) after stamping snowflakes on the cardstock. I love the look of it.

Look, the blue one! Figured if I was taking all of the pictures again, I'd take a picture of the blue polar bear card also.

I held a Stampin' Up workshop and got this set as a hostess prize. It's called riveting. This one says "Happy Holidays" around the outer ring and has a tree in the inner ring. Used my versamark pad for the highlight on the outer ring. I had saved this silver ribbon from a Christmas present I got last year knowing I'd love to use it on cards. I mounted the one happy holidays on 3d mounting tape and hung the present charm from it.

Another one the same as the last, but this one has an ornament charm instead of the present charm.

As I was going through my various card holders getting out the cards again this morning, I found this card we were supposed to give to one of my husband's friends for Christmas last year that he never gave them. Pretty simple, but I like the look.

Danielle