Christmas selection (posted by Claire)

Good morning, Claire here with a selection of Christmas cards made for Lesley's shows on Hochanda.  

To make this acetate card I cut the front off an 8x8card blank leaving a little border (about 2cm) along the top and used red line tape to attach an acetate panel. I stamped the gorgeous little house from New England Winter on watercolour card and added some colour with watercolour paints, highlighted with glitter and glossy accents. I cut this out and then tore several strips of card, adding glitter to the torn edges. The important thing with this style of card is to add some weight to the front of the card otherwise it doesn't stand up properly so the strips of snowy card give the front some strength. Layer the strips of card, popping the house in between. I added some 'snow' with a white Posca Pen and some icicles with glue and glitter. I stencilled the moon using Seasonal Elements stencil and white gesso with a sprinkle of glitter. The sentiment is from Let's Get Festive. I made the background using watercolour paint, creating a very dilute wash of colour. 

My second card was made using Frosty Trees. I began by stamping the slender trees with a rainbow ink pad, it doesn't show too well in the pic but the trees are actually shades of blue/green and purple. Next, I stamped the ornate tree with gilding glue and applied some silver holographic glitter. I used the same stamp to create a border around the white card. I stamped the sentiment (from the same set) with gilding glue and again applied glitter. 

I love these pretty birds and made two colour variations for the show using the Winter Birds set. This one in shades of pink and brown was fairly quick to make. I watercoloured the image and die cut with a spellbinders die before dusting with distress ink (Picked Raspberry and Tea Dye) and added some frantage embossing powder. The sentiment is from Let's Get Festive, I stamped with versamark and carefully embossed with gold embossing powder, carefully missing the word Hearts which I coloured with pink EP. Again this was die cut and distressed before layering up on a shaped easel card made using the same die. 

My last card for today features the same stamp but in more traditional Christmas shades of Red and Green.

I watercoloured the image, adding some glitter for a snowy sparkle and splattering some paint here and there for the background. I stamped the holly border using the little silhouette stamps from the Winter Birds set. I stamped them in green and added red berries using a fineliner pen. I added some dots of white glue and dusted with some glitter. 

I hope we're giving you lots of inspiration for your Christmas cards, this year is whizzing by and it will be here before we know it. Thanks for visiting today

Claire xx