It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Even before I became a Close To My Heart Independent Consultant, I was a CTMH customer. Many of the products I purchased were Christmas themed. There's just something about Christmas products that makes me happy!

Now that I'm a more experienced stamper, I'm really falling in love with the variety of Christmas stamps CTMH offers.

Usually, I make one set of Christmas cards, but this year with all the awesome CTMH Christmas stamps, I'm likely going to be making several different cards in batches. Here's the first one!

This card was made using two different CTMH stamp sets: the exclusive C-size stamp set in the Workshops on the go Pear & Partridge Scrapbooking Kit (page 65 of the current Idea Book) and A Timber (from the Autumn/Winter 2011 Idea Book).

Here are the instructions to create this card:

1. Make a 6" x 3 1/4" card from Colonial White cardstock with the fold on the left.
2. Make a 5 3/4" x 3" panel from Sky cardstock.
3. Lightly ink edges of Sky cardstock with Chocolate distressing ink.
4. Stamp snowflake image from WOTS Pear & Partridge Scrapbooking Kit stamp set in White Daisy ink onto Sky cardstock.
5. Adhere Sky cardstock to card front.
6. Pierce holes down right side of card (through Sky cardstock) about 1/4" from the edge.
7. Using White Daisy embroidery floss, blanket stitch through the holes.
8. On a separate piece of Colonial White cardstock, stamp tree image from A Timber stamp set in Olive ink.
9. Without reinking, stamp tree image again on the right, overlapping first image.
10. Cut out stamped trees and adhere to front of Sky panel, about 1" from the bottom.
11. Stamp star/swirl image from A Timber stamp set in Slate ink across bottom of trees.
12. Stamp star image from A Timer stamp set in Cranberry ink above the darker tree.
13. Adhere a Bitty Sparkle to the Cranberry star.
14. Trim a 7" length of white ribbon and stamp Happy Holidays from A Timber stamp set in Slate ink towards the left end and trim a chevron end.
15. Fold right end of ribbon twice and secure. Adhere ribbon to Sky cardstock, above trees.
16. Add Pear Badge Button to ribbon.

Voila! A lovely holiday card!

It may seem like a lot of steps (and the stitching does add time), but you an easily make a batch of these cards in an hour or so if you do all the stamping for each element at once. For example, if you're making 20 cards, cut all the cardstock at once, stamp all the same images at once, etc.

This would also make a great cardmaking project for a girl's night with 3 or 4 friends. Each person takes on a task (i.e one person does all the snowflake stamping, one person does all the paper trimming, etc.) then the cards are assembled once the pieces are ready.

Keep watching my blog for more Christmas card ideas.

Happy Scrapping!