Santa at the Window

Hi, CottageCutz friends!  Lois here with a Christmas card today.  It's hard to believe that it's already December.  If you haven't made all your Christmas cards yet, you best get cracking!   CottageCutz has lots of fun Christmas dies in their store.  Be sure to take a look!  My card for today uses two coordinating dies, Window with Shutters and Window Christmas Friends.

To start my card I cut cardstock and patterned paper as follows:

Black - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored at 4 1/4"
White - 4" x 5 1/4"
Patterned paper - 3" x 4 1/2"

One of my favorite embossing techniques is to ink up the embossing folder before placing the cardstock inside.  This Sizzix Bricked folder always works so well with this technique.  I inked it up with gray ink, inserted the white cardstock, and ran it through my Cuttlebug.  When you use a dye-based ink (such as Memento), the folder rinses clean under the faucet.

Next I die-cut the pieces from the coordinating dies, placing them on my sticky board to keep the small pieces from getting lost.

Using ink or markers, I added some texture to various die-cut pieces.

I wanted a window in my brick wall, so I laid the die-cut window in the center of the panel and drew inside the panes.  Then, using an Exacto knife, I cut the opening just outside the lines that I had drawn.

This photo shows the opening.

I placed some Scor-Tape around the perimeter of the window and cut a piece of acetate slightly larger than the opening . . .

. . . and, removing the protective paper from the Scor-Tape, I carefully placed the acetate over the opening.

I then glued the patterned paper in the center of the black card base.

I decorated the front of the card, gluing down the window frame and cornice and adhering the shutters and window box with foam pop dots.  After gluing the three flowers to the garland, I pierced the centers and added a yellow mini brad to the center of each.  I then glued the whole garland to the window box.

Before attaching the front of the card to the base, I had to construct Santa.  I used the illustration on the front of the packaging as a guide.  His head is attached with foam pop dots, which made it easy to place him on the front -- leaving his arm not glued down.  I then slipped the tree (on which I had applied some liquid glue) under his arm and pressed it down to hold it firm.  I had lined him up so that he would show through the window.

Because I had used pop dots on Santa's head, I needed to use thicker pop dots on the brick card front so that there was a bit of room between Santa and the window sheet.

I attached the brick card front so that Santa and the tree showed through the window -- and I was finished.

Be sure to check out all the wonderful Christmas dies on the CottageCutz website.  Dies used on this card are:

Holly Night

Hi!

It' s Anja again with the Sunday post. December is here and the lights are already up all around our city. I still have a lot of work to do before Christmas. I have to buy and make some more gifts and I have to make some more Christmas cards. Every year I try to make some with Nativity motive. This year I'm using the new Cottage Cutz Away in a Manger die for my Nativity cards.

For this card I used:
 - Cottage Cutz dies (Away in a Manger),
- Distress Inks (Black Soot, Chipped Sapphire, Seedless Preserves, Faded Jeans, Stormy Sky, Broken China),
- white card base (10,5x15 cm),
- white card stock for background (10x14,5c, and 9,5x14 cm) and die cuts,
- white pen,
- Wink of Stella Glitter Brush pen,
- paper glue.

First I made the background. I colored the edges of the bigger rectangle with black Distress Ink. I only colored around the edges, because the middle of the paper wont be seen.

Then I used Distress Inks to make a night sky. I started in the middle with Broken China and then went to the edges with darker shades. I colored around the edges with black Distress Ink. Then I spritzed it with water drops.

I cut the silhouette of the Holly Family and colored it with black.

Afterward I put some glitter all over the silhouette to give it a little more interest.

I glued the background on the card base and this time I used white pen to make a few stars onto the night sky.

On top of the background I glued the silhouette. And that is my finished card.

Have a nice Sunday and a pleasent week ahead. 

Anja Z.

Cottage Cutz products I used:

Joy Nativity in a Z-Fold Card

Hello Scrapping Cottage friends! Thanks for taking the time to stop and visit today. It's Mary Marsh here bringing you the Saturday edition of the Blog. Hope you were able to jump in on some of the huge savings with our Black Friday sale that was held on the online store.

Today, I am back to Christmas cards. The time is getting shorter and I need to finish up my cards for this year. That is my plan for this weekend. For this post, I decided to make a Z-Fold card and feature the Joy Nativity and Angel Trio dies. So lets get started with some details on this card.

Step 1: this week I started my card with the fancy fold I wanted to use. I like the Z-Fold and thought it would work well with the dies I wanted to showcase. This fold makes a very nice card presentation and is not difficult at all to make.

Dark Brown Card Base: 5 1/2" x 8 1/2"

Step 2: Cut 2 pieces of patterned paper- one is 3" x 5 1/2" and the other is 1 1/4" x 5 1/2".

Attach the 3" piece to the cardstock between the scored lines.

Turn the card over and line-up the 1 1/4" patterned paper to the corner of the card.

Used my bone folder and reinforced the scores that I made on the cardstock. I folded back the score line on the 1 1 /4" panel and now I have my Z-Fold card.

 

 

Step 3: I created the front panel for my card. I used one of the angels from the Angel Trio die and on the square panels I used the Stitched Square (4th largest) and the Square Set (3rd largest) dies.

Assembled the square panels and attached the angel with dimensional adhesive.

I used doubled sided tape and attached the panel to the 1 1/4" panel.

Step 4: Now onto the inside of the card. I used the Joy Nativity die for the inside panel. I also used another of the angels from the Angel Trio die.

Attached the pieces to the card inside with glue dots and Ranger Multi medium matte adhesive. After I attached the kneeling angel I decide to add a few pine sprays to ground the image. I also added some stars to this panel. I used the stars from the Snowglobe Friends die.

I also added stars to the front image panel to complete my card. That's it for me for this week. I hope I have given you an additional idea for a Christmas card. Especially if you bought these dies when the big sale was going on. See you next Saturday!

 

 

Dies I used to create card:

 

 

 

 

Hope for Healing

Hi Cottage Cutz fans.  It's Jeanne posting today with a card of encouragement for those courageous women we know who are battling breast cancer.

I started this card by watercoloring a piece of 6 x 5 inch mixed media paper in three different shades of pink - Blushing Bride, Pink Pirouette and Primrose Petals.

I then cut it down to fit the front of an A2 size card base.

I used the second largest rectangle from the Double Stitched rectangle set to cut a white panel for the front and I used two shades of pink for the sentiment.

I found the two shades of pink made the ribbon stand out a bit more.

This card was also entered into this week's CAS Colours Sketches challenge blog sketch challenge.

Dies used:

Thanks for visiting today. I hope you have a great weekend and find some time to be creative!