Over the Top Christmas Swap

Taking a break from turning the living room into a fairy princess extravaganza for Natalie's seventh birthday party today, to share these cards from a demo-only swap I recently mailed off. My friend Jael organized it and I am really looking forward to seeing what we get back. I hope my stuff is good enough!

I started with this vintage cardinal card, a variation of one we made for Christmas Club. It was a very messy card!!! It has Smooch Spritz, Shimmer Spray, Smooch Accent Ink, and I also used the Color Spritzer tool on it! Love using the Accent Inks to make gilt edges on the cards.The musical notes DSP came from Newsprint. I'm on my third pack!

This one's a little more in Vintage Nouveau category–modernized and less cluttered. I did the silver gilt edges on this one, too. I also used more of the Newsprint DSP, this time brayered with Basic Gray (because I'm one of those people who just can't mix vanilla and white). It's hard to see in the photo but there's both dry embossing and heat embossing, lots of Basic Rhinestones and plenty of Shimmer Spray. I like the subtle shimmer of the Organza ribbon.

The 3-D snowflake came from the new Northern Flurry Decorative Strip die in the Holiday Mini. Lots of people are missing this little treasure, tucked away in the back of the Holiday Mini catalog! Check it out of the bottom of page 38. I had a lightbulb moment the other day when I realized that some of them are meant to stack…the eight different sizes and styles were so cool singly that I didn't even think to stack them!

The last card was a variation of my go-to mistletoe, made with the XL Bird with Leaves punch. I stepped it up by layering the punch from Perfect Punches, adding Crystal Effects, and then doing the Faux Canvas technique (link to the photo tutorial). It really made the medallion piece pop.