Monday, December 8, 2025

HAVE A HOLLY JOLLY CHRISTMAS

This week I am going to be sharing "Last Minute Christmas" cards.  If you are still making your Christmas Cards this week, you are probably feeling a little stressed and could use some ideas for cards that do not take too long to make.


Although this card may not look like it is a quick & easy card, it is!  As long as you have the right tools, this card is VERY quick and easy to put together.

The Very Vanilla card front with all the holly leaves was created with the Jolly Holly Hybrid Embossing Folder.  With just one quick pass through the Stampin' Cut & Emboss Machine you emboss and die cut the holly leaves at the same time.  


If you are not familiar with a Hybrid Embossing Folder, it means that there is a die that fits inside of the embossing folder.  You just add your cardstock in the folder and run it through your die cutting machine!  Voila, you are finished!  t doesn't get much easier than that.

The two rectangular die cuts and the "joy" are also created with dies form the same Holly Jolly dies.  


There is zero stamping on the card front.  And those holly leaves are positioned perfectly to be able to tuck the corners of the sentiment assembly under them.  I added a little liquid adhesive on the back of the assembly to hold it firmly in place.

On my card I did add Basic Rhinestones colored with Stampin' Blends to highlight the holly "berries".  However, if you are really short on time just leave those off.  Honestly, if I were to make this card again, I don't think I would put the colored Rhinestones on it.  It is clean & elegant without them.  By the time I figured out I would like to leave them off, they were stuck in place, so removing them was not an option without damaging the card (I tried).


The Holly Jolly sentiment on the inside was heat embossed with gold embossing powder, and I added a simple Brushed Gold Foil strip to add a bit of decoration.

Use this link to download a tutorial with detailed instructions.

A list of the products used is shown below.  The products needed are few.  You just need the right ones to keep it quick & simple.  If you don't add the Rhinestones, you would not need those or the Stampin' Blends that I used to color them.


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Location: Commerce Township, MI, USA

Friday, December 5, 2025

HAPPY SPANNER FUN FOLD

My last card this week is a Spanner Fun Fold and surprise, surprise it is not another Christmas Card.

This card was made with Sharon Armstrong's Million Dollar stamp set called Happy Place.  Even though the "HAPPY" is designed as a tropical beach scene, I decided to combine it with the gorgeous Splendid Autumn Designer Series Paper.  

It's Autumn (going on winter) here in Michigan and our summer boats and toys have been put away for a couple of months but it is always a good season to be HAPPY!

I inked my "HAPPY" stamp with sponge daubers working from top to bottom with Balmy Blue, Crushed Curry, Cajun Craze and Mossy Meadow -- some good Autumn colors.


My biggest challenge with this card was that I wanted as much of the Autumn path on the arch to show as possible.  I played a bit and finally a lightbulb went off when I remembered there is such a thing as Acetate Sheets.  So I decided to cut apart each letter from the "HAPPY" and mount them to a strip of Acetate with dimensionals.  


This way I could at least see through between the letters, and then when you lift up the spanner portion of the card you can see the full path.  (Yes, you can see the dimensionals on the backside of the letters when you open the spanner, so just place with neatly!)


What do you think?

Isn't this Splendid Autumn DSP beautiful?  I honestly thought it was retired, but when I looked it up on the Stampin' Up! Online Store I was pleasantly surprised to see that it is still available!  YAY!


Flip up the middle flap and you see the inside of the card.  The "BIRTHDAY" was also inked with sponge daubers to create a bit of ombre effect with Crushed Curry and Cajun Craze ink.

I think this card would work well for men or women.  What do you think?


A list of the products used is shown below.


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Wednesday, December 3, 2025

MODERN SANTA FUN FOLD

I'm excited to share today's card with you, and I look forward to hearing what you think about it.


The style of this card is a little less traditional, but I love how it turned out.  There is a lot of Christmas gold which leans right into my taste of Christmas decor.  Even Santa is all decked out in his gold Christmas Suit!


His suit was made using the paper piecing technique.  I first stamped him on Basic White and then again on Brushed Gold Foil.  Just be sure to use Stazon or some permanent ink when you stamp on foil because otherwise it wants to smudge.   To create his suit, fussy cut just the sections you want from the foil and adhere it to the Basic White stamped image.  Fortunately this Festive Santa has a coordinating die so I die cut him before I dressed him up in his fancy suit!

On Monday on indicated that the fun fold that I cased was based on a card I received from a fellow demonstrator.  I also received this fun fold from another fellow demonstrator.  When you have a sample in hand, it sure makes it easier to figure out how to make it!

But this fun fold definitely needs a few extra photos to get the full impact of the awesome card.


Here the card is shown fully open so you can see how each panel is decorated.  Obviously, you could decorate them differently than I did (mine is very different from the one I received), but that's part of the fun.

I know all the cuts & folds look a little complicated -- which is what I thought when I received it, but actually it was so much simpler than it looked.  There are no strange dimensions!  I even "messed up" my horizontal cuts for the pop-out section, but it still turned out great.  In fact, in one way it actually worked out better as the largest Stylish Shapes Die now worked perfectly to cut the Gold Foil mat behind Santa.  

Because I had miscut I had to adjust the size of the DSP & gold mats above and below Santa a bit, but it worked out great.  In fact, I may experiment with making the pop-out section (where Santa is) in different sizes depending on the image I want to put on the pop-out.  I would just recommend that you do not cut your mats until you have your horizontal cuts done.


Above you can see the card all closed up and below is a close-up of Santa.


I think he likes his fancy gold suit!

The trees behind Santa were fussy cut from the same Modern Christmas Designer Series Paper that you see on the far right section of the card.

I didn't want to write my message on the pretty forest of trees, so I decided to add a message layer on the back of the card.


If you would like to make this fun fold, use this link to download a tutorial.  The tutorial includes a diagram with all the cutting and scoring dimensions and step by step directions.

Again, I don't know the name of the fun fold so I'm calling it a Quadruple-Double Fun Fold!

A list of the products I used is shown below.  Click on any image to learn more about that product or to make a purchase.

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