Christmas Gifts

I posted off four parcels of Christmas gifts today. To send gifts to Australia by surface mail and have them arrive by Christmas they have to be posted in October.  I have lived in Canada for eight years now and I am getting better at the early Christmas routine, but I still find myself scrambling to take advantage of the surface mail prices rather than the more expensive airmail rates.  As well as sending early, packing light also keeps the postage costs down.  This year I made several packs of greeting cards in matching boxes.

I went through my stash of cards and sorted out cards made using the co-ordinating designer papers and then made more matching cards so I had sets of five cards in a box with a designer paper lid.  The cards above (along with this one and this one) completed the set I made using Le Jardin designer paper and co-ordinating cardstock.

I will post a few pictures from the other sets as soon as I can.  I plan to do a box tutorial when I get a chance but Sharon has an excellent one and so does Leslie.

Supplies:
Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Paint Prints, Art by Design
Inks: Always Artichoke, Bashful Blue,
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Le Jardin Designer paper, Almost Artichoke, River Rock
Also: Olive Organza ribbon

Stamp Simply without stamps!

Not quite “no stamps at all” just no picture stamps!

The current Stamp Simply challenge is quite a thrill for me as I am Sharon’s co-host this week.  Last month when Sharon was having a bonanza of blog candy and competitions my name was chosen.  This meant that I came up with the challenge, which is to make a card without using picture stamps.  So I refrained from reaching for the Christmas trees, snowflakes, flowers or leaves.  The only type of stamps allowed are  sentiment or background stamps.

I decided to feature designer paper instead and pulled out the Certainly Celery paper from a year or so back which is covered in pretty designs.  As soon as I did I started thinking of fabric swatches again and ended up with the shabby chic design above.  I distressed the edges of each piece of designer paper and then found a piece of white lace to fit in with the fabric theme.  I stamped the sentiment in versamark and embossed in white before adding a little white eyelet.  The sentiment is from the Upsy Daisy set.

Make sure you visit Sharon’s talented design team members’ blogs and see what they came up with.

Darlene
Julie
Dee
Jennifer
Janine
Tammy
Becky

Have a great day and thanks for dropping in.

Supplies:

Stamps: Upsy Daisy
Inks: Versamark
Cardstock: Whisper white, Certainly Celery, Certainly Celery Designer papers
Also:  White e.p. white eyelet

Floral Birthday

The third of the Bella Rose d.p. cards I made last weekend reminds me of a Laura Ashley bedspread, roses and pink polka dots on a crisp white background would be lovely in a bedroom.  Perhaps the bedskirt could be in the green floral print.  I think one of the reasons I am enjoying using designer paper so much is because it is like sewing, but I can achieve a finished product in much less time than it takes to complete a sewing project.

I did not do much more here than cut rectangles and mattes.  I did pull the edges of the green designer paper piece across the Riding Hood Red stamp pad to get a very thin border of red.  The rose and leaves are rub-ons, from the new Château Bella rub-ons raised on stampin’ dimensionals.

Supplies:

Stamps: Upsy Daisy
Inks: Riding Hood Red
Cardstock: Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss, Bella Rose designer paper
Also: Château Bella rub-ons