Holiday Card Boot Camp...no way to catch up...

I will forever have access to this online class...boy am I grateful for that!  These last two weeks have been very stressful..in one of my card postings several days ago, I mentioned my MIL being near death.  Well, she quietly slipped away to her eternal peace this last Monday...we could not have asked for a better ending.  We were all  by her side, we showered her with our love and dear thoughts and then she stopped breathing for maybe two minutes, then she would take three deep breaths, repeat this a total of three times and then finally no more breaths...so calm, no pain, so easy...Our Lord is indeed merciful!

So even though I will not be able to catch up with the card class and post pictures for critiquing or for entering into their contest, I can at least use their instructions to make some very fun cards.  The first card I want to show you is one that Jennifer McGuire demonstrated...and as usual she uses Distress Inks.  Now I did not have the colors she was using, but that is okay, go with what you have and I like how it turned out...I kind of skipped a step because I did not like how it looked when I did follow her instructions...so let's take a look at the card first:

First I took a piece of white card stock and I stamped the Christmas tree (Hero Arts) with versamark and then embossed with white powder...I took some eclipse paper and tore a piece off and laid it below the tree.  using the Ink Blending tool, I inked up both the dusty concord and broken china distress ink for a very pretty sky...then I spritzed it with Perfect Pearls.  I mounted the picture on white cardstock and then using a technique that Jennifer showed, I took another piece of white paper and inked up the edges with the dusty concord so that I could compliment the picture with one of the same colors I used to blend in the sky for background paper.  The card itself is a tri-fold card...paper cut at 5.5 x 8.5, scored at 2.25 along each end...
I used a blue cardstock for the card itself and stamped a Text Background on it...here is the inside of the card:

This was a very fun technique...Jennifer took it a couple more steps, she used the eclipse paper and placed it at the exact spot, but covering the top portion of the card, then she inked up peeled paint and little bit of the purple and blended it into the bottom portion of the card. I liked how it looked with just the white...reminded me of snow on the ground, and since the tree was all white with snow, I decided to just leave it as is...

Holiday Card Boot Camp - Day 5 card #2

Along the same order as the previous card, I embossed the snowflake folder with water color paper, this time I used seedless preserves and spun sugar for the two colors...the snowflake is colored with the "seedless preserves distress ink...a very pretty color...I die cut the button from PTI's Buttoned up die and colored it with the spun sugar distress ink... I added some embroidery floss to the button; the sentiment is again from Stylish Sentiments:  Holiday.

Holiday Card Boot Camp - Day 5

I think I will be jumping around...doing what I can with the products that I have and the time I have to do it.  My MIL is nearing the end of life and we are at their house every day...sometimes for all day and into the night.  My FIL really appreciates our presence even though we have care givers...so I am just doing what I can. 

Day 5 with Jennifer seemed like a quick and easy card to make...I used the cuttlebug snowflake folder and embossed it using water color paper.  I then used Distress Inks:  faded jeans and peeled paint with the ink blending tool.  After I inked it up, I spritzed it with Perfect Pearls and let it dry...I die cut a Sizzix snowflake..twice for some depth, and I blended in a little bit of blue on the flake and then I added "Icicle" stickles...just smeared it around with my finger...oh it looks so shiny and sparkly!  When it was dry, I adhered the two together and placed it on the card.  I die cut a button and inked it up also...I want to be able to send these in the mail without having to add extra postage...The sentiment is from the Stylish Sentiments:  Holiday.

 

Do you see the sparkle form the stickles?  

Day 1 of the Holiday Card Boot Camp

The first card showcased by Kristina Werner was an ornament with a snowflake die cut out from the center...I used a circle nestabilities and a Sizzix snowflake die which I adhered to the face of the circle...I used the Background Basics:  Twinkle with versamark and the two strips of paper are actually the same color, but the one on the right I used the Distress Stain Picket Fence to tone down the color...the sentiment is from Stylish Sentiments: Holiday.