Christmas in July with Michele

Hello friends.  Michele and I had a playdate last week where we decided to make Christmas cards, and Michele had a bunch of Tim Holtz she wanted to play with, so we die cut all 673 pieces and came up with some FUN Christmas cards to share with you today!  And yes, we had all the hugs, laughter and good food too!! (Michele makes the absolute best egg rolls...out of this world delicious!!) 

The first one we die cut was all the pieces for the Santa, and while it seemed like there were over a 100 pieces to this cute little guy, I think in reality it was a few less than that.  But not by much!!  Haha!  But anyway, here's what I came up with...

 Isn't he a cutie?!  I cut mine all out of white cardstock except for the black pieces, so I had some coloring to do with my Copics.  My background used SB's Hexi Snowflake embossing folder and a scrap piece of dsp from SU!, and the sentiment was die cut from black cs using Waffle Flower's Merry Christmas Print Die.  I used a wobbler behind Santa for a little interactive movement and then finished with a few Disco Ball sequins (Gina K).

This card uses the Deck The Halls die set from Tim and I did use colored cardstock with a little bit of shading using ink and blending brushes.  Once I had all the pieces glued together, I mounted them to a white panel that I embossed using SSS's Holiday Greenery embossing folder and a edger die from PTI (To The Point Edger's II).  The scrap of dsp at the bottom is from SU! and is a dark green and not black like my photo shows.

Here's a close up so you can see some of the details better.  For my sentiment I used PTI's Tiny Tags die and stamp set and attached it with a piece of twine.  I really like the way this one came out!!

My 3rd card from Tim uses the Delightful Deer dies, and I think these two are having a little Christmas time romance!  They were die cut from kraft and white cardstock and I used a bit of Walnut Stain Distress Ink to add some blending around the edges of the two.  I embossed a die cut circle using SSS's Forest Border embossing folder and added the deer over top of it.

You can see the embossing a bit better in this close up.  I also made this card using a book binding fold where you score 1" from the left hand fold and then glue it down from the inside, so the card opens up like a book.  (Hope that makes sense?!) I used Evening Evergreen cs and a coordinating scrap of dsp from SU! to add borders to this card.  There didn't seem to be a good place to add a sentiment on the outside, so I'll just add it to the inside.  I finished with a few wooden stars that I've had for ages from SU!.

My last card is VERY simple but I'm absolutely loving all the SPARKLE from a piece of gold glitter cs (SU!).  The tree is from a Waffle Flower Sneak Peek Kit (Retro Christmas Tree) that I won a few weeks back and hadn't had a chance to play with it yet.  The tree was stenciled and then die cut, and then I used the same die to cut out the gold glitter cs piece and offset it just a bit so you could see even more of all that sparkle.  I placed it on a white embossed background using that same Spellbinder's Hexi Snowflake embossing folder that I used on my Santa card.  The die for the star and the sentiment strip were also included in the kit.  I did add some sparkling gems for the background from PFS.  

Four more cards for my Christmas stash and I'm so happy about that, as I haven't been keeping up like I have in past years!  Thanks for getting me motivated Michele, and of course for sharing all your goodies with me, the wonderful lunch, and most of all the continued friendship...I am such a lucky girl!!  Make sure you check out what Michele did with these Tim Holtz dies...she never disappoints and always amazes me with her talent and creativity!  And now I'm off for a look see!!  Blessings my friends!    

Thanks for stopping by today ... I love it when you do!