Time for making Christmas Cards

Last week Hero Arts threw out a great challenge to encourage me to get started with some holiday cards. I pulled out my Christmas stamps to try Sheri Carroll's Shabby Chic's tips. This is not a specific style that I have worked to achieve in the past so it was indeed a challenge for me.

My first idea was to recycle a coffee cup sleeve.

After all I feel recycling is very chic! The sleeve has such a wonderful texture I had been wanting to create something fun with one. The background is metallic gold dabber with lots of sticklers. HA Stamp, punch table cloth and embellishments. I added a little pocket to inside to make it a gift card holder.

Here I used a plain wooden ornament for my jumping off point. Crackle paint, metallic dabbers, and distress ink were all used on the snowflake...and then more sparkle and pearls to finish it off. The outside backgrond paper was put through the cuttlebug with distress ink.

At the last moment I decided I just had to try combining this collage stamp with some the button printed paper that I had hanging out for quite a while.

Hmm now the dilemma--now I am ready to start Christmas stamping but I don't feel I have enjoyed my fall and Thanksgiving stamps enough....could my answer be to just take the week off work? Oh how I can wish!