Well, it has been a few years since I have made a post. As life goes, sometimes the journey takes us in different directions. Now I have had a chance to play around with stamping and cardmaking again. This holiday season I have been playing around with Ranger Alcohol Ink techniques. This technique has made it's way into my Christmas cards.

For this card, I began with the Yupo paper as the paper medium for the alcohol inks. I like to spray the Yupo paper with the alcohol blending solution, and then apply very small dots of about 4 - 5  different colors of the alcohol ink. Then I apply a few more dots of the inks to the blending pad, spray again with the alcohol blending solution, and dab over the background repeatedly until I reach the desired effect. The beauty is that no two backgrounds are ever alike. For this card I used indigo, stonewashed, lettuce, sailboat blue and pitch black alcohol inks.

I incorporated the Peaceful Boughs, Perfectly Plaid, Pine Tree Punch, and Heirloom frames.

Z Fold Snowflakes

I received a Christmas card from my friend Diane Doumitt in Florida that was a beautiful ZFold card. It inspired me to check out this simple technique! The ZFold itself is simple, but all of the miscellaneous details that go into each panel take some time when you do it as a batch of cards!

For the card base, take a 4 1/4" x 11" piece of cardstock - I used NIGHT OF NAVY. Score at 2 3/4" and 5 1/2". For the NIGHT OF NAVY pop out bottom strip, cut a 1 1/2" x 11" strip and score at 2 3/4" and 5 1/2".

The white panels for the main card are two in size 2 5/8" x 4 1/8", TOP NOTE bigZ die. For the pope out strip one size 1 1/4" x 5 1/8", and two size 2 5/8" x 1 1/4". For assembly, only adhere the left half of the long size of the strip to the left side of the background, and adhere only the right side of the scored strip to the side of the card with the TOP NOTE background.

I stamped WHISPER WHITE CS with BLUSHING BRIDE ink using the DIAGONAL STRIPE background stamp and then cut out with the oval from STITCHED SHAPES framelits. I stamped the tree from PEACEFUL PINES stamp set in SILVER metallic ENCORE ink and cut out with PERFECT PINES framelits. All background snowflakes were stamped in SMOKY SLATE using images from CHRISTMAS PINES, SNOWFLAKE SOIREE, AND FLURRY OF WISHES. Both sentiments are from the FLURRY OF WISHES stamp set and were stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink.

The bow and pine branches were cut with PRETTY PINES thinlits using SILVER GLIMMER paper. The pinescones were cut out of BLUSHING BRIDE CS.

Only adhere the bottom part of the oval tree popout to the popout strip!

CHRISTMAS MOUSE

I love the MERRY MICE stamp set - so cute! The background is embossed with CABLE KNIT dynamed EF,and the stars are from the LUCKY STARS EF. The pines branches and bow are cut with the PRETTY PINES thinlits. The pines branch background and sentiment are from CHRISTMAS PINES stamp set. The background stripes were stamped using DIAGONAL STRIPE background stamp, and cut using TOP NOTE bigZ die. I used BLUSHING BRIDE, SMOKY SLATE and VERSAMARK INK embossed with black detail powder. Cardstock is WHISPER WHITE, SMOKY SLATE and BLUSHING BRIDE.

CAS Christmas Pines

A CAS card using CHRISTMAS PINES stamp set and PRETTY PINES framelits. I love the pop of color that the glitter paper adds! Pines were stamped in BROWN SUGAR, and branches were stamped in PEAR PIZZAZZ and ALWAYS ARTICHOKE. 

Sepia Tones

I thought it would be fun to try the train from the CHRISTMAS MAGIC set in Sepia Tones. The background tree is from WONDERLAND, and the sentiment is from CHRISTMAS PINES. THe train is stamped in BROWN SUGAR, and colored with BLUSHING BRIDE.