Quick & Easy Christmas Decorations - Paper Rosettes

Christmas is fast-approaching and having made several cards now I thought I would turn my hand to some decorations.  Even though I love crafting I so often just use what I already have, or buy the occasional new decoration.  

I love the look of paper rosettes and with ready-to-make kits these are even easier to make. 

For this decoration I have used Papermania A4 Foiled Rosette Pack (Christmas Tidings - Carols) and Noel Glitter Die-Cut toppers, plus gold card and twine. 

To make this without the kit you will need two sets of the following in different patterned card: three 19.5cmx5cm strips of card with one scalloped edge on each, a 6cm card disc and a 4cm card disc. You will also need four card strips 28cmx0.5cm.

To start, score the three strips at each scallop then concertina fold.  Glue them all together to form a cylinder shape, then flatten this with the scalloped edges outermost and glue the underside to the largest disc. You can then glue the smallest disc on top and embellish this however you wish. Do this for both sets to create two rosettes. To further embellish one rosette, take the four thin strips and glue to the back to form a star shape, folding over to create loops. 

Mat two toppers onto gold card and trim. I have used a sentiment and a tag-shaped picture which I have punched a hole in. 

To create the hanging string, plait three coloured twines together to form a long string. Make a loop and fix to one rosette with masking tape or glue, then lay on a table and arrange the toppers and the other rosette where you want them before attaching.  I have alternated each and threaded the twine through the tag, knotting in front to hold. Cut any excess twine off and hang your decoration. 

I would like to enter this decoration into the DoCrafts Anything Goes challenge.

Tri-Shutter Card - A Green Christmas

In my pursuit to try out different card styles, I have noticed an abundance of tri-shutter cards.  These look amazing and at first glance seem quite complicated, but they are actually really easy. Another great thing about them is they fold down to A6 size so are great for posting. 

For this card I have used Papermania Naughty and Nice Christmas plus a Noel topper and other embellishments.

First I measured dark green card to 5½"x12", then scored and cut as per the template below:

Cut

I creased and folded to create the shape then cut panels of different patterned paper from the stack to fit in each part of the card. 

For the front I added a large oval topper using 3D foam pads.  At the back I threaded twine through three buttons, knotted and trimmed before glueing in a line down the centre of the panel.  I wrapped some twine around the right side of the top panel and tied in a bow, holding down with glue. 

To finish off I cut a tree shape, glued it to the small back panel and added dots of glue and green glitter. 

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

1. Do Crafts - Christmas

2. Challenges 4 Everybody - #29 Anything Goes

3. Divas By Design - Anything Goes

4. Allsorts - Button Up

Software Focus: Photoshop - How to create a vintage postcard

I recently bought Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine and the free postage stamp stamps gave me the idea to create postcard-style Christmas greeting cards. 
I searched Google images, but couldn't find the perfect image.  The ones I did like were watermarked and had to be paid for, so I decided to create my own. For this, I turned to Photoshop Elements.  I use this program all the time to correct my photos and add my watermark before publishing, but it is also a great tool for being more creative. (You can find a great tutorial on how to create your own watermark here.)

Creating the postcard
First I found the images I wanted to use (vintage paper, place stamp here and vintage postcard) and saved them.  Most images are in jpg. format and will have a white background. This needs to be removed first in order to place them over coloured backgrounds. 
Open the images in Photoshop and use the Magic Eraser to delete the white areas. You can then save each one as a png. file for later use.

Once the white area is removed, the image will look like this: 

Do the same for both images and also open the vintage paper file, then create a new file the size you'd like the postcard. I used 15x10.5cm. 

Next use the Move tool to drag the vintage paper from the bottom into the new file you created.  Resize it so it overlaps the new file and click the tick to approve. (tip: you may need to rotate it to landscape first)

Do the same with the two images.  You will need to fiddle about with resizing and moving until it looks right.

You then need to add some lines to finish off the look.  Use the Pencil tool at 1px.  To make this easier, view the grid and make sure snap to grid is ticked. 

Hold down the Shift key while drawing the lines as this will keep them straight. (tip: create a new layer to draw the lines in case you make a mistake)

Your postcard is almost complete, so just flatten the image to bring all the elements together (tip: you can remove the grid view to see better now)

And this is what your postcard should look like. Save as png. or other image file to print out in another program.  You can also save the Photoshop (PSD) file to be able to change it if you like.

Once you have printed the image, trim to size and glue to the front of a card blank ready for embellishing.  This is one I have done: 

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

1. Challenges 4 Everybody - #29 Anything Goes

2. Divas By Design - Anything Goes

 

Angel Hugs Button Frame Card

I love to create simple-to-make cards that look striking.  Digistamps printed fairly large make great focal points for cards and you don't really need much else.  
Christmas is coming and at this time of year we are making lots of cards, so it's great to have something that's easy to do but looks impressive.  I have used an Angelberry digistamp from Polkadoodles and lots of lovely buttons that I recently won from Do Crafts.

To start I folded a green piece of A4 card in half to create an A5 sized card.  I then printed the Angel Hugs stamp within an oval shape and cut it out, then 'painted' with watercolour pencils.  I used a dabbing action on the penguin with grey and black to give the illusion of fur.  Once the image was dry I added some glitter glue to the wings and baubles. 
I glued the image to the card and used buttons of various sizes around the oval to create a frame.  To finish off I added an outline sticker sentiment and a few buttons in the corner. 

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:
1. Polkadoodles - Week 35 Fairy Time
2. Do Crafts - Framed Card Challenge
3. Paper Creator's Crafts - #13 Anything Goes