Christmas Cards-in-Boxes

Or is it Cards-in-a-Box? Or Card-in-Boxes?

We had a bit of a discussion about this the other day on our Stampin' Up! demonstrator discussion site. Don't think  we came to any definitive consensus. What do you think it is? Leave me a comment in the comment section at the bottom of my post and tell me what you think!

Anyway, I had a custom order for six Christmas cards, and my customer wanted three of them to be cards-in-boxes. I love making these, although they are time consuming - depending on how much detail you want. They are also a good way to use up scraps, retired designer paper, etc. Here is my collection:

The middle one of Santa going head-first down the chimney, was inspired by a fellow Stampin' Up! demonstrator, Linda Bauwin, who had done it as a wrapper for a chocolate bar. The chimney is created using the Brick Wall embossing folder. Here's a side view:

There is a lot of sparkle from the Silver Glimmer Paper. The icicles at the top of the chimney are a scrap left over after cutting out words using the Christmas Greetings Thinlits dies. The word 'jolly' is glued onto a piece of clear acetate to make it look like it is floating.

Cherry Cobbler cardstock was embossed with the Brick Wall EF and I used a white gel pen to make the 'mortar' between the bricks.

Here's a side-view of the houses:

 

This uses the retired Holiday Home framelits and Frostwood Lodge designer paper.

And the snowmen:

The snowmen are from the retired Snow Much Fun stamp set and the designer paper is scraps I've been hoarding er - saving - from the Winter Frost designer paper.

Hope everyone is ready for the Christmas season and will enjoy spending time with friends and family!
 

Boughs & Berries

Playing around with a new embossing folder - Boughs & Berries - I decided to try colouring the embossed image.

I embossed a piece of Crumb Cake card stock, then "painted" the raised parts with Craft Whisper White ink and a Blender Pen. Colour was added by again using the Blender Pen and just touching it to the stamp pads to pick up colour. Cherry Cobbler, Mossy Meadow, Garden Green and Soft Suede are the colours used.

The trees are done using the Festival of Trees stamp set stamped right onto the Crumb Cake with Mossy Meadow ink. For the middle tree, I stamped the solid background with Garden Green and stamped over that with Mossy Meadow and then punched it out with the Tree Punch. Both the tree and the Cherry Cobbler pot it's in are popped up using dimensionals. For the card base, I used Mossy Meadow card stock.

It has a country feel to it that I like as a contrast to all the Christmas shine, shimmer and bling. So, go ahead and colour your embossed images!