I made far too many Christmas cards of a single design this year. My goal for 2022 is to make a set of Christmas cards each month, so there's not a big rush at the end. I post a few as I go along if I create one for a challenge, but typically wait to post until I know they've been received. So today, I thought I'd do a Christmas card roundup of some of the cards I particularly liked. And, in fact, there's still one challenge looking for Christmas cards.

First of all, two cards created with one of my favorite 3-D embossing folders: the poinsettia from Altenew.

This was was embossed with red paper and lightly swiped with a white pigment ink. I tried a couple of variations with this technique, but this was the only one I liked enough to make into a card.

I made two or three variations of this card with the same embossing folder and a red frame from The Greetery.

This card went to one of my best friends, a single man. It got posted on Instagram, but not here. I dry-embossed the frame and added the gold embossed deer and sentiment to a Nordic Circle die from The Greetery that a friend had die cut for me. 

I used this oversized Joy stamp from Waffleflower on several cards–all a slight variation of this one.

Another card made with a 3-D embossing folder and a sentiment from The Stamp Market. I should have made a few more of these.

This was one of the cards I made early on, and I made a set of them. It's a set I've owned from Altenew for awhile, but never found a design I was happy with. Stamped on white and then die cut with a pierced frame.

This was the biggest set of cards I made–25 in all. There were four different snowflakes so I could die cut them in sets so it went pretty quickly. I did the die cutting at home, and stamped and assembled them in November when we were visiting Sarah.

And one variation on the card above, I only made one or two of these because they required embossing of the sentiment which takes more time. I already know the first set of cards I'm making for next year and they do require embossing, but if I'm working well ahead of time, it shouldn't be a problem.

All the following cards were made in one session with a group of pre-made tags and die cuts from 2020. Several of them use a new tag die from The Greetery that die cuts two tags at a time. I have more ideas for those tags for 2022.

And my favorite of the bunch:

There's still one of my favorite challenges open for Christmas cards, so I'll be posting to AAA Cards, and then calling this season of card making done.

 

My card here won a challenge at the CAS Mix-up Challenge in October, and I was asked if I'd like to be a Guest Designer for the first post of 2022. Of course, there was no hesitation before saying yes! I was thrilled to be asked.

Each challenge at CAS Mix-up involves some kind of mixed media and/or a technique. The challenge this round is "Loose Watercoloring." If you know me well, "loose" isn't something you'd typically associate with my card making. Luckily, however, the hosts of CAS Mix-up always include links to a variety of ways you might complete the challenge.

I definitely took advantage and watched all the videos for this technique. I tried three different takes on loose watercoloring, and ended up with this which I like quite a bit. It's a much quicker method of watercoloring, and yet allows you to stay CAS – another requirement for the challenge.

I embossed one of the images from Honey Bee's "Winter Anemone" in gold on Altenew's Watercolor paper. I added a heavy wash of clean water over the entire image, and then dropped in some pink and green watercolors from the Altenew 36 Pan Watercolor set and set it aside to dry.

I went back in with some more watercolor to brighten them, and then die cut the image. You can see that there's no need to worry about staying inside the lines with this technique.

I layered the floral on an oval die cut with Ellen Hustson's "Essential Ovals" die, and dry embossed five lines on the card before adhering the floral with some dimensional tape. The sentiment from Pink and Main's "Special Day" was embossed on black and trimmed out.

Please go take a look at what the designers at CAS Mix-Up have to show you It's sure to be a lovely gallery with lots of wonderful takes on this technique.  

I have a lovely pink poinsettia on my desk, and it's inspired me to make a variety of Christmas cards with pink poinsettias. Life here has been much busier than usual. We no longer eat in restaurants, but we are seeing friends here and in their homes since we're all vaccinated and boosted. It's so much better than last year, even with the Omicron variant hanging over our heads. And it's making the holiday much more fun that it was a year ago. Nonetheless, Instagram and blogging have fallen by the wayside for the last week. But now that I know this card has safely arrived in my friend's hands, I can share it here on the blog. 

This card was made specifically for a blogging friend who loves all things pink. It was another one of the cards I put together with dies that had been cut last year, but not used. The poinsettia is from Papertrey Ink's "Modern Gift Card" set which I layered onto a lighter pink circle die cut with Simon Says' "Stitched Circle" die and a gold circle frame from the Ellen Hutson "Essentials: Circles" dies. 

The sentiment is from a new Christmas set by Penny Black, " Happy & Bright," and it's my favorite new sentiment set. I've used it over and over, both on the fronts of cards as well as the inside sentiments.

I'm entering this in two challenges: The Flower Challenge (a fave that I've neglected for far too long,) and Addicted to Stamping and More, a newer challenge for me.

I'm a fan of women's collegiate basketball, and have been following the Connecticut Huskies for over 25 years now. There was a televised game Friday night, and I decided I'd like to make a card while I listened and occasionally watched the game. It wasn't a nail biter, so it was easy to craft and just listen.

I keep a list of current challenges on my Notes app, and looked through to see if I could find a couple of challenges that might work well together. I started with the Color Throwdown Challenge: silver, pink, and white. Then I saw Cécile's sketch on Freshly Made Sketches and knew I could use some of my previously die cut poinsettias for the card. This morning I discovered that the new Flower Challenge: Christmas certainly fits the bill as well.

Just recently, I took a pile of poinsettias I had die cut last year from Papertrey Ink's "Modern Gift Card" dies and colored and assembled them. The starting point for the card were the white and pink poinsettias, and for the Color Throwdown Challenge, choosing a card base was easy—it had to be silver. 

To match the sketch, I pulled out an already die cut circle, and added two silver glittery holly leaves cut from a new Simon Says die set, " Christmas Foliage."

I used some silver gems from Paper Studio for the centers of the flowers. The sentiment was embossed in silver on a narrow strip of black cardstock with a sentiment from Avery Elle's 
"Seasonal Simple Sentiments."

I love when everything comes together so nicely. It doesn't often happen, but I'm quite fond of the sketch and happy with the card!