Christmas Cards Already?

Where did the summer go? Kids are back in school, with all the insanity that goes with it, vacations are a not-so-distant memory, and it is once again time to get busy with the important things in life...crafting for the holidays! Yay! If you don't get started now, you might not get them done in time for Christmas!  So, to inspire you, all of September the Dream Team will be featuring all the new goodies we have for the "Most wonderful time of the year", the fall and winter holiday season. New stencil designs, and new dies, are found on-line through the Stencil with Style web-site, or your local papercrafting store.  

Here's my holiday inspiration for this week:

Here's what I used to create this card:

Dreamweaver Stencils© DG674 Nested Ornaments Die Set
Dreamweaver Stencils© LG674 Oval Ornament
Dreamweaver Stencils© LJ891 Holly Swirl
Dreamweaver Stencils© LJ896 Large Flourish
Dreamweaver Stencils© Regular Embossing Paste
Americana® Antique Gold Acrylic Paint
Americana® Gloss Enamels® Metallic Glorious Gold Acrylic Paint
Translucent Gold Glass Beads
Clearsnap® ColorBox® Fluid Chalk Ink in Dark Moss and Lipstick Red
Tim Holtz® Distress® Ink in Tea Dye
Tsukineko® Delicata™ Golden Glitz Pigment Ink
BasicGrey® Fruitcake™ Collection Nutcracker/Pine and Vintage Ornaments/Pine
Gold Metallic Cord
Beacon® Adhesives Zip Dry™
Scrapbook Adhesives™ 3D Foam Squares
Glue Dots

Here's what I did to create this card:

Mix paste and paint to achieve gold color, add beads (optional to add beads but was my effort to mimic spots on ornaments printed on patterned paper and to age it)
Trim patterned paper to size for card
Create 5"x5" card base with a tent fold
Paste-stencil bottom ornament directly onto ornament paper
Using chalk inks, brush-stencil holly and berries onto bottom ornament
Die cut one large and one small ornament from double-sided stripe paper
Brush-stencil gold swirl onto solid side of small ornament
Add distress ink to the edges of all three ornaments to give a more "vintage" look
Attach die cut ornaments to patterned paper as shown
Create three gold cord bows and trim three pieces of cord to "hang" ornaments
Adhere gold "hanging" cords to ornaments and wrap other end to back of patterned paper and adhere
Attach patterned paper with ornaments to card base
Using small glue dots, attach bows to ornament tops

You can make the ornaments as simple or as detailed as you wish, either way, it's a relatively fast card to create.  If you have a lot to do, this would be an easy design to duplicate!

Of course, we have our monthly challenge for you to play along, so post your own holiday creations, and use the Inlinkz tool on the Dream It Up! blog, for a chance to win the prize at the end of the month. We also have our fabulous Guest Designer for the month of September, Wendy Price! Here's the list of our "A" Team with their links for the week:

Dream It Up!

Wendy Price (GD) 

Leadonna Kimmel (Me)

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Lynn Mercurio

Pam Hornschu

Jamie Martin

That's it for me today!  I do hope I've given you a little inspiration to start your Christmas card creating!  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you again soon.  Have a blessed day!

Hugs,
Lea

An InLinkz Link-up