A creative start to 2012

Starting 2012 off creating :)

I am starting this new year off creating! And I love it!
I set a personal monthly goal to create 6 Christmas
cards, 10 gift tags, and 1 homemade gift each month.

Gold and Holly

This is a very simple card, but I like clean and simple on
many of my cards. The holly background is a designer paper that I received,

as is the gold paper. I did use SU whisper white cardstock for the
card base and to stamp the sentiment from the SU stamp set Christmas

Punch in gold encore ink. The image works with the SU wide oval punch.
I also used some gold ribbon from my stash for an extra gold element.

Cruisin' Sparkling Santa

I definitely had the recipient in mind while creating
this card. I decided to use the SU Cruisin' Christmas stamp set, with my uncle

in mind. I used SU whisper white, glorious green, and real red
cardstocks, as well as a designer paper from my shopping. To bring out the red

sparkle in the designer paper, I covered real red cardstock with versamark,
then embossed it with iridescent ice embossing powder.

I stamped the Santa motorcycling image in Memento tuxedo black ink

and added some color with SU markers.
I stamped the sentiment in versamark and real red, then also
embossed it with iridescent ice embossing powder.
Then I finished it off with a fun, sparkly fiber from the Paper Studio.

I Said a Prayer Angel

We found out that my mom was the designated
recipient for a challenge on SCS, where we are members and friends
with so many great people. She has received some beautiful cards
from people on SCS - some she knows, but most she doesn't.
I thought this was such a cool idea, and decided to check out
the weekly challenge. I am jumping on the Teapot bandwagon, and
decided to start with this very challenge for my mom.

I used SU bermuda bay, cool caribbean, and whisper white cardstock.
For the background, I used the shaving cream technique with
the SU bermuda bay and cool caribbean refil inks.
The angel image and the prayer sentiment are non-SU
stamps, and unfortunately I cannot name what company. I received the
angel image in an image swap, and I received the sentiment from a

friend, and there is no company name on it. But I love both!
I colored the angel in with a blender pen and the same SU inks. I covered

her wings using the versamarker, then embossed with iridescent ice
embossing powder. I stamped the sentiment in marina mist ink onto cardstock vellum,

trimmed with decorative scissors. I finished the card off with some SU hodgepodge

hardware and a non-SU cord from my stash.