Mixing brands for Christmas - cards easy to post

Hi Everyone,

Before I go into the details of today's cards - please make sure that you follow me on Instagram, if you want to see all of my creations. Instagram is where I share many more photos and projects than I do here, simply because it's much less time consuming :o) And, I think, a bit more fun, too!

In today's post, I want to share a few more Christmas cards that I have recently made - all are similar enough, since they're using similar products, yet at the same time I tried to make them all look a little bit different. You could call these a set of cards with a common theme, I suppose. 

I don't know about you, but I love mixing and matching different brands on my cards. The companies probably don't like it too much, since they would prefer a card/project to showcase their products only (or mainly), however I find myself reaching for different products for one project very often - that way, I somehow feel like I support more brands at once :o)

For today's set of cards, I wanted to mostly use my Gelatos (since they have been sitting idle in my drawer for a long while now!), and a die set by WPlus9 Stag Trio, which I have recently acquired through a destash. The rest of the stencils/stamp sets I used, were chosen based on the details I wanted to have on my cards. 

To start with, I made 4 card panels, using my Gelatos. I coated watercolour cardstock with white Gesso, and then let the Gelatos do their magic. Some of the panels (sadly, this is not visible in the pictures) were also sprayed with water mixed with Perfect Pearls, which adds a lovely glittery shine to the backgrounds. 

The first card features one of the stags cut out of silver glitter paper. I added a little red rhinestone, to represent "Rudolph's red nose". The sentiment is by Neat and Tangled, and I heat embossed it in white directly on top of the panel. Notice that the panel was also die cut, to add some stitching detail. 

It's a pretty flat and light card, hence it will be perfect for posting!

The next card has a much lighter blue background, and for some additional interest, I added some white pigment ink through a Simon Says Stamp stencil, to imitate that it's snowing. There are also a few golden splatters here and there (courtesy of my Delicata Ink). I used the same stag die as before, but this time I layered 3 of the die-cuts together, for some additional dimension. The final layer was heat embossed in gold. The sentiment, and the edges of the panel, have also been heat embossed with the same gold embossing powder. 

The pictures don't really show it much (I apologise, it's hard to get proper natural light nowadays in Helsinki!), but this background actually has quite a bit of purple in it - the dark purple and blues are on the top, and the colour goes lighter towards the bottom of the panel. This time, I used the Simon Says Stamp stencil for "snow" again, but in order to get some nice shine, I used a Nuvo Mousse through the stencil. In real life, the shine is amazing! Note that I dabbed the mousse through the stencil more than "spreaded it", as I didn't want to have much dimension - I just wanted the shine. You could, however, just as easily use the mousse like you would an embossing paste, and get much more dimension, if that's what you're after. 

This time, my die cut stag is also a bit more dimensional, as - like in the example of the second card - I layered 3 die cut pieces together. He also got a tiny red nose :o) The sentiment (by Neat and Tangled) is white heat embossed on a strip of vellum. 

I think this is my favourite of the four! 

And here comes the fourth card. This is one of the ones where the panel is all sparkly and shiny thanks to the Perfect Pearls, but it's not visible in the pictures at all. The stag is actually die cut from the panel here, and - since it's matted on a white card base - it gets the colour from the base itself (that left me with a bonus blue-purple stag die cut, which I will surely use on another card soon!). The gorgeous sentiment is by The Ton, and it has been cut out from silver glitter paper. 

The card doesn't look like much in the photos, but in real life it's simply gorgeous - there's loads of sparkle, which contrasts nicely with the dark background. 

I am entering these cards into the following challenges:

Card no:4 - The Ton - Holiday

Card no 3: SSS Flickr Challenge #84 - Happy Holidays

So here they are - my set of 4 Christmas cards - all nice and flat, and will be easy to post for sure! In the coming days, another similar one will surely join this group, as I still have that one blue stag die cut left :o)

I hope you enjoyed these! I sure did have fun making them, and I hope they bring joy to their recipients also. 

Have a great day,

Mirella