Christmas card using everyday stamps and dies

Hi everyone, Esther here with a Christmas card that was fun to make and mostly used everyday stamps and dies - though I did make an exception for the gorgeous sentiment stamp! As you've probably picked up by now, I think it's great when you get lots of different use out of products, especially if it's something where you might not immediately think of using them.

For this card, I stamped and gold heat embossed My Favorite Things Bundles of Blossoms. This is such a gorgeous background stamp, really versatile, and its look totally changes depending what you do with it - plain stamping, heat embossing, emboss and watercolour, have it in black and white or vibrantly multi-coloured, have it all showing or just a corner peeping out from under something else... love it! 

I then used My Favorite Things Inside and Out Stitched Circle STAX Dienamics to cut a circle and a matching frame. I coloured the circle with inks to get an ombre effect, and then splashed with water and mopped up to bleach out splatters here and there. I glued the circle and the frame to the embossed background.

Using My Favorite Things Make a Wish stamp set and coordinating Make a Wish Dies, I then stamped, heat embossed and die cut three candles and three flames and adhered these over the circle.

The little leaf from the stunning new Concord and 9th Lace Leaf stamp set looked really festive stamped and heat embossed in gold. I cut it out multiple times using the coordinating Grateful Leaf Dies and glued the leaves into a decorative foliage cluster at the base of the candles.

Next, it was that sentiment set I couldn't resist - My Favorite Things Hand Lettered Christmas. How fab are they?! I stamped and heat embossed "noel" in gold on vellum, and used a trimmer and fussy cutting to get it to the shape I wanted before wrapping it over the leaves and gluing it on the rear of the embossed panel.

Finally, the whole panel was mounted on matching blue card stock and then on to a heavy weight card base.

I hope this helps to inspire some of your own Christmas cards. Luckily, this year I "only" have 86 to make compared to over 100 last year, but I know some of you make way more than that, and others just do a few for special friends and family. How about you? What's your card making target for Christmas this year? I'd love to know :)

Thanks for stopping by!