Diamonds for Christmas Anyone? (posted by Craftymamma)

Hello everyone, I made this card as a Design Team submission a few weeks ago after revisiting a few of the lovely Chocolate Baroque 'back issue' Christmas stamp sets. As usual, I have mixed my stamps from 3 different sets - Christmas Reflections, Christmas Decorations and Frosty Trees for the sentiment, which is one of my favourites.

My card started with a lovely piece of acetate I had coloured with alcohol inks an absolute age ago, found when I was looking for something else and I wondered how I could use it. I decided to use it as a layer for backing the diamond images and then chose the colours of my card to co-ordinate with the lovely golds and coppers of the alcohol inks. I stamped the diamond images and heat embossed using copper embossing powder and I then coloured the baubles with Twinkling H2os in shades which are not quite the norm for Christmas. I then stamped the pretty holly border usuing Coffee Archival Ink directly onto my base card, positioned the diamonds and attached them with 3D foam and finally stamped the sentiment. The only measuring I did for positioning was to mark the centre of each edge of the base card, everything else was done by eye.

Hope you like my Christmas in July offering and that it whets your appetite for looking back at previous years' Chocolate Baroque Christmas stamps where there are so many beautiful images. Hugs Lesley (E) Xx

Inner Reflections Card (posted by Judith)

I have made a card using the Mistletoe Joy and Christmas Reflections stamp plates. I created an A5 card, and covered the front with dark green card, followed by a layer of lime green card. I then used a printed paper from the Spirit of Christmas paper pack. I stamped the Mistletoe ball onto white card, and coloured this with pencils, and blended them before cutting the image out, and matting it onto a white oval. I then matted the oval onto a larger dark green oval, and placed this onto my card.

I lined the inside of my card with the same red printed paper that I had used on the outside of my card. I then took a piece of A4 white card, and scored and  folded it in half. I drew an oval shape in the middle, and cut it out. I then folded each outer edge inwards towards the middle, and created another fold line.

I stamped the holly down each outer edge with Forest Green StazOn, then using Crimson Red Versafine, I stamped the two Peace images at the bottom. I stamped and coloured the Christingle ball, before cutting this out, and used some cotton to hang this from the central crease of the inner card, fixing a small amount of tape behind the card.

I then taped the two outer panels only, where the holly is stamped to the inside of the main card, taping all around the panel for stability. The final touch was to add some red Stickles glue to the berries on the Holly stamp, and leave them to dry.

Keep checking back to see what the other Design Team members have created with the Christmas stamps, thanks for popping by today, Judith xx

A Green Christmas! (posted by Elaine)

This card uses the gorgeous Christmas Reflections A4 stamp sheet.

I randomly stamped and heat embossed the background panel with the small holly stamp in Ranger Queens Gold embossing powder on hammered dark green card. This embossing powder, recommended to me a while back by Glenda and her staff, is my favourite gold, a bright shiny finish, that gives a pleasing effect every time.

The pomander and sentiment are embossed in the same way and then I used dark green H2O paint to highlight the ribbon on the pomander. I used a favourite nestie die from the labels 4 set. I matted all the panels onto gold card and added a dark green velvet trim before matting onto the final medium green 8 x 8 panel using foam tape to give depth.

The finishing touch for this card is poinsettias die cut and embossed from green pearl vellum using a Marianne die, with leaves cut from gold paper with a Crealie die, all held together with large green pearl brads.

I hope this inspires you to get going on your Christmas cards with these lovely stamps.

Elaine