Last Christmas Cards CTC#109

"CASE anything from all Cattys" they say, but what do I do but my very last Christmas cards for this year (I think). So... looking for inspiration for a nice card for the ladies at work, I came across the Hostess stamps in the Holiday Catalogue, right there at the beginning on page 3. This is a CASE of Holly Jolly Layers. My design has been simplified slightly to allow me to make a number of them as rapidly as possible. Luckily I made them before my bouts of summer sickness began. I had bronchitis for my birthday, and acute tonsillitis less than a fortnight later. Oh, the joys of working with children!!!


Anyway, the weekend has been restful and pleasantly family oriented (7 year old grandson's birthday today) and I have only 1½ days left at work before a LONG break, so I can hang in there.

Here is my sample. The layers on the stamped image are there, there is ribbon and gold thread, even the die cut 'jolly' - don't you love the diecut words? They add a certain elegance to a project.I wasn't sure how far my musical DSP was going to go, so I cut smaller pieces and folded less, but I'm happy with the result.

Apologies for the blurred photo for this card. The very last card is for the youngest on our team, and for a bit of fun I changed her card a little. It has a very simple stamped greeting which was just the base for the layered tags, one piece of ribbon, no gold bakers twine BUT a couple of cute owls from the other Hostess stamp set on the same page, Cozy Critters. I have to confess now that this one is my favourite, possibly because I changed it up the most.
Wishing you all the joy of the festive season. May you spend your holiday time with those who are special to you.

Next you're hopping along to Monique

Cheers, Rachel

Birthday Foxes

Another birthday celebrated this past weekend and I just had to use some foxes on this one. The one on the left is from the Foxy Friends stamp set in the Annual Catalogue, and the other is from a hostess set at the front of the Holiday catalogue, Cozy Critters. That also has the branch I've inked with Stampin' Write Markers and the owl with enormous eyes.

The tree stump is from Foxy Friends too, just hand cut, whereas there is an owl punch and a fox punch if you don't much fancy hand cutting.
I used a tutorial from Bronwyn Eastley (addinktivedesigns.com) for the basic dimensions of this card, and it fits beautifully into a Stampin' Up! envelope.




Mine is a much simpler card, Bronwyn's are absolute works of art.
Kirsten was thrilled with her card when she opened it, and I have to admit, it gave me a lot of pleasure making this Z-Fold card. I'm wondering if anyone wants to come and do a class for this card - let me know if you do.

Have a productive week
Cheers, Rachel