Graphic 45 Twas The Night Before Christmas Card Design

I always love seeing the gorgeous designs from Graphic 45 papers. Their new Christmas themed paper collection is titled "The Night Before Christmas". I'm making some cards for a class that I plan to teach at EASY AS CAT SOUP, a stamp, scrap and mixed media store in Anderson SC. This is the first card. Actually pretty simple and fast to make. I think that people who are making Christmas cards really want something that is not terribly time consuming but also eye catching. For this card the only paper product not from the pad is the card base. That is a Bazill Basics card stock. The colour wasn't labeled on the shelf, but any red that 'goes' with the colours in the card will work. I think a deep green would also go well. It would pop the lighter greens in the paper designs. The bow is made on a new-to-me bowmaker from Craft-debowz. Later, I will be posting cards with some more elaborate bows made on this tool. It is available from Easy As Cat Soup. The glittery trim is  from Starform Glitter Stickers. I love those stickers because they are a fast, easy way to add a lot of zip to a card design,

My online art group has another 'mingle' that I think is really fascinating. Each participant is to create a 4 in x  6 in background and mail it to the assigned partner. The partner then collages an altered  page on that background and mails it back to the originator. Here is the background that I made for my partner. I'm anxious to see what she will do with it

If this works out well, I might try exchanging with other art friends to see what they do, and then bind it into a friendship exchange book. 

One of the online art groups to which I belong has a 'mingle' in which participants are to make 1 altered 5x 7in, page for each of three people. This is one of the pages I made. Don't know which one is going to receive it, I have two more pages in various stages of completon.
For this one I started with 90# vellum finish Bristol board. I used Tim Holtz Distress Pants on a craft sheet, Then the paint was spritzed with water and the page dragged through it. When it was dry I used a stencil with Ranger Texture paste to create the floral pattern. When it was dry I used Iced Spruce Distress ink and then dusted the raised pattern with Forever Green Perfect Pearls..The ferns were stamped with Mowed Lawn Distress Ink, and embossed with Ranger Sticky Powder and then had Bronze foil applied. Branches in the upper right corner were stamped with Mowed Lawn DIstress ink, then Forever Green Perfect Pearls brushed on. The whole page was edged with Mowed Lawn Distress ink, then Pearl Perfect Pearls brused over that.
Finally, a bird image was cut out and perched on a piece of Crepe Myrtle bark from one of my trees

I hope you like it.

I seem to have become a card making fool. These are four cards I designed for a class to be held at EASY AS CAT SOUP in Anderson SC, The class will be 10:30 AM Sat. Sept 20. These are the four card designs I will teach. The papers are from Graphic 45 Come With Me collection. They can be used for almost any occasion. Birthdays, Graduations, Job change, Retirement are all starting points in life's journeys. Of course travel itself is cause for celebration.  And then, we all start new journeys each year as we celebrate another year of life.
I hope you enjoy the card designs. Perhaps I will see you in the class.

I've scheduled a new class with Easy as Cat Soup in Anderson SC. on Aug 2, 10:30 to 1:30  I will do three cards using the exquisite papers from Graphic 45 Botnaical Tea collection. The cards are pictured here  int he June post. They are the ones that use the cut outs and some layered die cuts. Participants will only need to bring their basic tools, including their personal paper cutter, good scissors - detail scissors recommended and adhesive such as tape or glue. All other materials and special tools are supplied.
I hope the class will be a big success like the one I did last month.
I particularly enjoyed doing these cards because they include some special techniques that are actually easy but add a lot to the final result.

I've been really inspired by some of the gorgeous new papers put out by Graphic 45. I've been working with Botanical Tea and Couture in partcular. Here are a few of the cards I made with these papers for inspiration

 I made this one for a friend whose birthday is coming on Monday. I hope she likes it. She is a fan of the Roaring 20's so I think there is a good chance it will please her

I made this one just because the image appealed to me. Some matting, 'fussy cut the bird and butterfly, d some 'glitz' and it's done. It didn't take a lot of time even with the detailed cutting. It was fun

      

These two were from the small Couture pad. I had some beautiful Marble paper scraps  for background and I was very pleased with the results. Another friend has her birthday later this month and I will send one of them to her.Haven't decided which one yet.

Today was the day I taught my class at Easy as Cat Soup. What a great day! Eight of the nicest ladies you can imagine came to the class. We had a couple of beginners and it was great fun to see them start to relax and enjoy themselves as they created their cards. I always tell my classes that I love it when they do their own thing with my basic designs and these gals did just that. It was a roomful of wonderful creative energy

I showed Micki some of the cards I made with the Graphic 45 Botanical Tea papers. (Pictures are in a previous post.)  She LOVED them. So, now we are going to schedule a class with those cards and I will also do some card designs with their new Come Away With Me papers. See the papers here. We will schedule a class with those cards, probably for Sept.

The Botanical Tea Card class is tentatively scheduled for Aug 2.

At some point there will also be a series of technique classes. More about that as the plans come together.

I am excited to be teaching again. Can you tell?